I have enjoyed all my classes this semester and even found something I want to major in. I came in this fall with the intent of "figuring out what I want to do," which is the reason I took EDC 102, to see if I want to teach. I don't. I have thoroughly enjoyed the class, despite the fact that I do not want to pursue an educational career. Something I found valuable were the many discussions we had; especially since I felt like I had some intelligent and supportable points, thanks to the many books and articles we read over the semester. My personal knowledge base (PKB) has undoubtedly contributed to my academic success this fall, not only in EDC, but in my other classes as well.
In this class specifically, I used the Evernote Web Clipper all the time when conducting research for our various assignments. For example, when looking for articles to build my Rhode Island Strategic Project Plan on, I clipped and clipped, whenever I found something that seemed pertinent. After collecting a multitude of promising pieces, I reviewed them with ease, and was able to pick the most appropriate ones. This ability to take clip articles has been very helpful. It is so much more efficient than bookmarking, because you can actually see a picture of the page, and instantly remember it. I quickly began to use Evernote for my other classes.
The second notebook I created on Evernote was for my communicative disorders class, which is divided into two sections: Speech Language Pathology, and Audiology. I became very interested in these subjects, and used Evernote to clip note only study materials, such as YouTube videos about the anatomy of the ear, but also documentaries, interviews, etc. This helped me gain factual knowledge, and also a holistic appreciation of the course. I then made a notebook for psychology class, and used it in a similar manner. I also used Zotero often when writing papers for both EDC and psychology, it saved me a lot of time and effort.
A strategy I adopted this semester was watching instructional videos on YouTube. I did this a little last year for my biology and chemistry classes, mostly using Khan Academy, and found it helpful. This semester, I brought it to a whole new level with Evernote. I not only found great videos, but I saved them to a specific notebook for their respective class, and was able to revisit them. I definitely started to enjoy the subject matter more so.
Overall, the PKB experience has been very positive. I benefited in numerous ways, from study habits, to level of interest. I even tried to turn my dad onto Evernote and Zotero, as he is currently writing his dissertation, but he, like many adults, prefers the "old-fashioned way." To each their own I suppose, but I know I will no longer be creating my own citations. These programs are a way that we can use technology to enhance our educational experience. Technology offers so many helpful programs we are not taking advantage of. Many people think that technology in the classroom is unnecessary, but it can be used effectively. It can make our lives so much simpler, allowing for more learning time.
KianaAnderson
When I was first introduced to PKB this semester I was skeptical. I did not see why I should adopt a new system of keeping track of information or interesting things because I have managed to survive the educational system thus far. As reluctant as I was at first, I got into the habit of using Evernote as my PKB of choice and I soon discovered that it is not so bad. Evernote is a great way to keep organized. I have my own organization scheme that I use to take notes in class. Using Evernote is also more efficient than other forms of note taking; your notes are always a click away. And I can continue to use my lasting resources on Evernote to enhance my future learning.
My favorite part about Evernote is how organized it is. I use books and tags to keep my Evernotes in order. For this class, I have a book titled American Education and in it I have separate notes. I have a new note for each book we discussed in class and within these notes I have different sections for each chapter, followed by bulleted notes. I also have a note where I keep ideas from class discussions and a note for random ideas. Whenever I use the Evernote web clipper I make sure to tag it as American Education and maybe another tag that is more specific to what it is that I am clipping. I also use Evernote for my Educational Psychology course and for that class I have a separate book.
Note taking using Evernote is more beneficial than regular note taking for a couple of reasons. For one, when writing notes down by hand, people often use short hand phrases and slang when they do not have enough time to write their whole idea down. So later, when they go back to find a piece of information that they need to write a paper or just to look smart in class, they do not understand what it is that they meant by their slang and their scribbles on paper lose all value. However, when using Evernote, every thought can be captured and saved for future use because typing is more efficient. Each thought can be more complete and more easily accessible. Another benefit of using Evernote for note taking is that it helps to keep ideas organized. The organization allows the brain to process information fluently and one idea leads or connects to another, therefore optimizing the life and value or each idea. Hand-taken notes do not usually allow this free range of thought and ideas can lose purpose, direction, and their potential to become more than an idea. Both efficiency and organization are the benefits of Evernote that I have come across in my experience this semester. For these reasons, I believe that PKB will heighten my learning in the time to come.
Viewing my notes as a lasting resource on Evernote will enhance my engagement in my future course taking. Even using it for class this semester I found that having my notes in front of me, clear and presentable, helped me to be more active of a thinker. When using Evernote I can pick up from the last thought I had and build upon my previous ideas with new ideas. If someone were to raise an issue worth discussing during class, I could look at my notes and immediately know what thoughts I have on the subject that might round out a quality class discussion. In this way, Evernote has helped create insightful banter and creative thinking in our class, as it will in following discussion-filled courses. If I ever have a topic pop up in a future class that I have already taken notes on with Evernote, I can easily locate my notes and pick up from where I left off, while adding meaningful and purposeful insight to the discussion.
Using a personal knowledge base has opened my mind up to educational possibilities. My go to for the semester was Evernote. The efficiency and organization of PKBs allow for all sorts of open and creative thinking. PKBs can be catered to one’s preferred organization style, allow for easy note taking or citing, and can possibly keep learners engaged and connected throughout their studies. The use of personal knowledge bases in a classroom helps round out a conversation in a way that keeps everyone involved thinking, wondering, and creating. PKBs are great tools for optimal learning.
SaraBuckley
Being a person who is not very technologically inclined, I was not initially thrilled with the lack of pen and paper used in EDC 102 H. However, as I was introduced to more and more different programs, I started actually getting the hang of things. I created my very own Personal Knowledge Base. Little did I know how useful it would become! Now, I simply cannot imagine this class without using Evernote, Zotero, Evernote Web Clipper, mindmaps, and so many more.
My personal favorite program easily became Evernote. Evernote is essentially an online notebook. It is a downloadable program where you can create individual notebooks, organize notes you take, and never pick up a pen again! I enjoyed this eco-friendly aspect to Evernote and I did not have to carry another notebook in my backpack. Almost every day, we have in class discussions on readings or simply events going on in education today. Every time we started talking, it was so easy to pull up my EDC 102 notebook and start writing down bullet points. Evernote also has an "Evernote Web Clipper" in which you can easily "clip" articles, videos, photos, or anything you wish into your Evernote. This is so convenient when you want to keep an article for future reference or see something interesting you would like to keep.
As I started to grow more and more comfortable with Evernote, I began using it for other things. I started using this program for some of my other courses. I have tabs for my Gender and Women Studies and Communications courses which I use very regularly. I find it so much easier to pull out my laptop and just type away. It is so much faster than writing and I feel like I am able to pay attention to what my professors are saying because I do not spend as much time writing things down. It has become such a useful part of my education. I could not imagine starting my college career without it!
Viewing my notes on Evernote as a lasting resource will definitely affect how I participate in future classes. Being able to have all my notes conveniently in one place has been so cool! During second semester, I will keep adding different notebooks to my Evernote for my future classes. Having all my old notes to look back on will be an awesome tool to utilize throughout the rest of my schooling. It's like my own personal data base! I will now be able to go back to classes I took my freshman year as references for the future. I am so glad that I was introduced to this new program.
Although, I was not pleased with developing my Personal Knowledge Base. I could not imagine going through this class or the rest of my college career without things like Evernote or Zotero. A lot of people argue that technology is ineffective in classrooms today. However, if you download the right programs and utilize them correctly, then there can be many benefits to technology. For example, these new programs have helped me with sources for papers, organize my notes, and easily find videos, articles, and photos related to topics introduced in class. I will definitely be continuing to use my Personal Knowledge Base and know that it will help me in my future endeavors as a student! :)
JuliaCohen
I am not a technology person. In fact, I am the type of girl who can barely figure out google. When this class began, my spectrum for technology was anything but broad. I had been hearing about this thing that teacher at URI use called “Sakai”, but hadn’t yet learned what it was. When I got to this class (EDC 102), I learned about a new website, Wikispaces. Needless to say, I was lost. As my peers seemed to easily pick up what was going on and contribute, I could barely make my account. But, as the days went on, I slowly started to get the niche. Right as I caught up to the rest of the class, a new website was introduced to us; Evernote, and many more as the semester continued. These websites made Sakai and Wikispaces look like a piece of cake! I didn’t understand the use of Evernote. I could take notes on my computer if I had to, I didn’t need a whole website! Then, after I started using it and got the hang of it, I realized just how beneficial it can be.
My courses this semester were not extremely challenging to me, since many were general education courses. Classes like communication, theatre and general psychology were not difficult to me and I managed to do extremely well in them. Seeing as I am an education major, EDC 102 is a class that I am required to take. Being also an English major, meant that I had to take a short story English class as well. I found that these two courses were my most challenging. English has always been a topic that I am fond of and generally do well in. However, this course was quite challenging because I constantly kept getting the same 88% on each essay I wrote, even when I worked hard to improve them and even asked my professor what I was doing wrong. It was a constant struggle to do better, but I suppose that is not a bad problem to have. The education class was extremely challenging to me because as I said before, I am terrible with technology and this was a class that was centered on many different Personal Knowledge Bases (PKB’s). I was constantly challenged with submitting information to Wikispaces, making a Mindmap, using Zotero and following it all with Evernote, even though I don’t really know how half of that even works! I am a girl who is used to a good ol’ pen and paper, so this really was the first time that I have dealt with any real type of PKB’s like this. Countless times I tried to work with all of the PKB’s in my education class but I felt hopeless. I became very disorganized and confused with my classes. I often sought help from my peers and teacher and finally began to understand these new resources.
I never thought that Evernote would help me, but halfway through the semester, I became really invested in it and started taking all of my class notes on Evernote. I have found that the more you contribute to it, the more beneficial it becomes. Although I haven’t added personal items to Evernote, I can see how it would be very useful. It is nice to have all of your ideas, webpage clippings, etc. all in the same place and easily accessible. Each note of mine is “tagged” and labeled, so I am never disorganized or can’t find my work. Each class has its own tab with a “notebook” that I can keep all of my notes in. Not to mention, typing is much more efficient than writing, and although I am not a whiz with computers, typing fast is one of my strong points. I am much more efficient with taking notes on computers and tend to get more of the information since I am not focusing on slowly taking down the notes by hand. Also, I can continue my notes exactly where I left them and not have to worry about not having enough notebook pages. When I was researching for projects in class, I used the Webclipper to capture the bits of information I needed as I went. This helped me to be really productive. I knew exactly where the information I needed was, as opposed to having to search through piles of papers or different word documents/ websites to find it. Although I still did suffer from technical difficulties and often didn’t understand big parts of Evernote, the parts I did understand really helped me succeed in class!
My favorite part about Evernote is the fact that it is going to be there forever. When I am a teacher years from now, I might want to look back on my notes when I come across a problem or want some statistics on schooling. I never know when or if I am going to need these notes again, but now I don’t have to worry because they’re on Evernote if I ever do! Typically I save a great deal of papers from the classes I take and keep them in binders so that I can go back to them if I ever need them. This method has worked for me thus far, but over the years it consumes a great deal of space. With Evernote, it is all on digital files, so it is all still there but it is transportable and takes up no physical space. With these notes as a lasting resource, future courses in education may be easier since I have all of my prior notes at the click of a button. This may put me at a higher advantage to many other students who don’t have their old notes and don’t remember what they learned in previous classes.
Although I am not a strong supporter of technology and definitely not one who understands it well, I will admit that I think PKB’s were very beneficial in my learning experiences at URI, especially in classes where I need to take a great deal of notes. Evernote is an efficient and productive way to keep on top of my work but also pay attention to class and be an attentive and creative learner. I cannot argue with the fact that technology is ever prevalent in our society and is growing larger and larger each and every day. Although I am not sure that I am ready to jump head-first onto the bandwagon, I am now more willing to test the waters and am glad I was introduced to these PKB’s.
MeaganCoon
PKB- Meagan Coon
My first semester of college was much different than I expected. It flew by and I am having trouble wrapping my head around the fact its almost finals week. By far the most difficult class I had this semester was nutrition. My high school was not incredibly prestigious and I was always the kind of student that could get good grades without having to study. Nutrition was a wake up call for me and I am very happy I decided to take it first semester. It made me realize I would need to work a lot harder to get through my college courses and that I would need to dedicate a lot more time than I ever have to my work and studying. I really liked nutrition, which helped because I apply myself much more in areas I am interested in. I actually decided to change my major to nutrition and dietetics after about a month in the course. I found this course so difficult because it involves a lot of chemistry, which is a subject I have not had since sophomore year of high school. I created new study habits for this class that I also used for the rest of my classes. This included studying not just the night before the exam and using multiple sources to make sure I covered all of the information. I used Evernote to keep a personal knowledge base for all of my classes.
I used Evernote for just about everything in this course throughout the semester. I used it to record notes for the chapters of the books we read which was incredibly helpful for class discussions. I used it to record important dates of assignments that were due, including this one. The most beneficial use of evernote for me was the web clipper. I found and clipped all of the articles for my Rhode Island Strategic Plan Project during the first few classes in the library. When I went to write my summaries all of the information and sources I needed were already there and easy to access. When I needed to go to the original website I could just click the URL. I also downloaded the Evernote app on my phone so that I could look at it whenever I did not have my computer. Zotero was also an incredibly beneficial tool. Now that I use it I do not remember how I cited things before. When my zotero disconnected the other day I was struggling to find how to source information the way that I used to it took me much longer. Throughout this course Evernote and the web clipper have been extremely useful tools along with zotero and I plan on continuing to use them throughout the rest of my college career. Personally I was not a big fan of the Mindmap but I think that is just because I did not entirely understand how to use it, and the few times we used it many of my classmates just played around with it. I feel if I knew how to use it to its full potential I would like it more.
I continued to use my PKB for just about everything. I had been introduced to Evernote originally my junior year of high school. One of my teachers won iPads for her class and we had the opportunity to use evernote. She was not very well trained with the iPads or evernote, if she had been I think it would have been utilized much better at the time. I do not have my old account information but it would be interesting to see what is in my old PKB. With new knowledge of all that evernote could do I found it much more useful. I used it to keep notes in every single class except one. The one class I did not us it in was Com 101 because my teacher did not allow us to takes notes on a computer, which personally I found it ridiculous its 2014. The more accustomed I became with evernote the more I did with it. My favorite feature was the ability to search notes. Whenever I was studying and could not remember something I would just type it in the bar and whatever I was looking for could easily be found. This is so much more convenient than sorting through a notebook wondering when I took something down. It definitely makes note-taking, studying and learning easier overall. Zotero makes my life so much easier as well. I used it for citations in every class, including com 101 even though she has something against convenient technology, and in journalism for a few papers. For a giant group presentation in com we used google drives. This method worked out very well creating our project because we did not have to meet outside of class and arrange around everyone’s schedule. We could all access the same presentation and outline over the internet. I would not have known how to use that if not for this course. On the day of the presentation my computer locked me out of my Google account saying the page was invalid. Because I am not great with technology it took me a few days to figure out the problem. That is the one and only setback I have had using any of these applications.
The organization I have for my personal knowledge base took me a while to figure out. In evernote I have the list of each note in order by the date they were created on the left. On the right I have a preview of the note I have chosen. Recently my search bar and option to create a new note have disappeared from the top of my window. They reappear if I expand my window to the full screen, which I find very strange. I have 4 notebooks one for this course, psychology, nutrition and journalism. I have only used a few tags and only in this course. I used a tag for each book we read, and a tag for special education in Finland, which was my RI strategic plan project question. I recently discovered how to stack notebooks too so I will definitely do that come the end of the semester!
A strategy that I adopted this semester to help augment how I learn is trying to utilize all of the technology I have to the best that I can. I have never been incredibly good with technology of any kind especially computers. Throughout the entire semester I tried to put all of my notes and anything I needed to know into my PKB. It would be much easier for me to keep everything I need to know in one searchable database. This way I can study from it, look things up and even make connections between my classes because it is so much easier to find information. Its especially beneficial right before a big exam when I can quickly read over my notes on my phone before it starts. I have been to the help desk in the library a few times for computer help but I am definitely improving! I feel like there is a great amount of technology and applications available that if used the right way can benefit education. I think that using the PKB has definitely enhanced my education and made my first semester a little easier. I will definitely keep this PKB for the rest of my college career. It has a lot of information in it already and this is information I could need again in the future. It is definitely worth keeping, especially for my nutrition class because that is my major. After 4 years of college I will have hundreds of notes of information at my fingertips on my phone and computer that I can access whenever I need. I know I will not be able to remember everything I am told in every class of college but having it on a database I can search is using technology the right way. I am not sure why anyone would not want to utilize this!
AllisonCorey
PKB Essay-
Describe your most consistent challenge in your learning this semester? What was your most difficult class? What made it so hard? What learning strategies did you use try to be successful?
How did you use Evernote and the Evernote Web Clipper to support your work in this course?
Reflect on how you think that viewing your notes as a lasting resource might affect how you participate in future courses.
This was the first class where I really utilized technology in my learning. Creating a Personal Knowledge Base has been very beneficial in my organization in this class. After having a class with the PKB I can’t imagine a class without it. It was helpful when I needed to recall what I have previously read or topics that we have discussed in class. I can see myself expanding my PKB as I continue on my education.
This semester I have had a couple of challenges in my learning. For example, I struggle with keeping up to date with all of the different information I have in all of my classes. With taking five classes with all completely different set of notes I have trouble with keeping everything straight and organized. My most difficult class this semester is CMD 375, Language Development. It is so hard because it is a lecture of around 100 students. My professor stands in front of the class and reads off his word document to my class for an hour and fifteen minutes. I struggle with paying attention, especially when the class is not interactive or discussion based at all. But I have developed some learning strategies to be successful. I started to make notecards after every lecture to organize my thoughts. It is similar to my notes on Evernote but these are actual notecards I wrote with a pen. This helped me reinforce everything that I just learned in class as well as help me study for exams. I have notecards I can read over to study for tests. I am currently in this difficult class but I believe I found some strategies in order to be successful in the course.
I have used Evernote and the Webclipper a lot in ECD 102H. In the majority of classes I would take notes on Evernote just incase I needed to refer back to what we were learning at any point. I also think that will be beneficial when I take the final. Having some discussion points that we went over in class will help me when writing our final paper. Also, in the three novels that we read throughout the class I took notes on Evernote. It was super easy to access these notes when we had discussions in class about the night before’s homework reading. Also, whenever we were given handouts in class I would take pictures and upload it to my Evernote notebook. Finally, if in class we talked about a website I could clip it to my notebook. Having all of these different ways to take notes has kept my very organized throughout the class. I feel confident with the way I used Evernote in this class and I hope to continue using it in other classes and throughout my education.
Viewing my notes on Evernote as a lasting resource will affect how I participate in my future classes. It is very convenient to have all of my notes on my laptop. Instead of having a notebook and binder for each class it would make it much easier to have everything in one place. Also, after this semester I am going to be taking more classes for my major and a lot of the information will be overlapping. It will be better to not have to write information down twice in two different places. Having the PKB I will be able to copy and paste information that may overlap in my classes. I can also have different notebooks for different classes all through my Evernote account. This can keep me organized. By having everything on my laptop, I can easily take notes in lectures as well as discussion classes. Evernote is applicable to any class; it can be used in all of my classes and will keep me organized in order to be the most successful student I can be.
My Personal Knowledge Base in my EDC 102H class has definitely benefitted me. It not only helped me in this one class but it will help me in future classes. It has kept my fairly organized and kept all of my information in one place. Knowing how to use Evernote and keeping a PKB will further help me be organized in future classes. I am very happy that I received the opportunity to have had a class that was focused on technology. I now know how I can relate technology to my education and with that I know I will be a more successful student.
BayleeDiMarco
Throughout the semester, I have developed a Personal Knowledge Base (PKB) in Evernote that I believe will be a valuable resource for years to come. The introduction of Evernote in EDC 102H was arguably the best thing to ever happen to me in terms of organization. I started using Evernote and the Evernote Web Clipper solely for storing articles and sources for projects for this class. Throughout the semester, I have expanded my uses to storing sources for other academic courses, as well as storing some personal notes and links to look at in my spare time. In this reflection, I will address the details of my use of Evernote and the Evernote Web Clipper in this class, my other uses I developed as I became more comfortable with the application, and the organizational scheme within my Evernote.
Throughout this course specifically, I have used Evernote for everything. I store absolutely everything from class in my EDC 102H notebook including: class notes, educational resources, sources for projects, screenshots of my mindmups, and pictures of written documents. When using the Evernote Clipper, I commonly clip entire articles, but I have also made use of simplified articles, screenshots, and bookmarks. I find simplified articles best to clip when I plan on reading and annotating sources. The “simplified” aspect of the article eliminates all distractions and formats the text in an organized and readable way. The project that I used Evernote the most for in this class was the RI Strategic Plan Project. I first clipped the assignment details and instructions into a simplified article. I next clipped general sources such as Wikipedia so I could read when I had a chance to evaluate what I wanted to research further. Once that was decided, I clipped all the articles I had found for my Background Research page on the URITK wikispace. I then merged these sources into one note to keep them organized in one place. For this project, I also clipped a screenshot of the mindmup that I created for the visual representation on our team page. Lastly, I included a bookmark to our powerpoint from the teach-in that is located on my Google Drive. Having everything I needed for this project in my Evernote kept me organized and on track to complete the project in an efficient and timely manner.
As I stated above, the introduction of Evernote was very helpful to my organization. At the beginning of the semester, I was worried about my organization techniques in college. In high school, I took all my class notes on paper. For electronic documents, I used a Google Drive account attached to my school email. I like the easy sharing aspect of Google Drive; how I can share a document with anyone to peer edit my assignments. I now have a personal Drive and use it for this purpose. Now that I have Evernote, I type all my notes from class into the application and store them in folders for each course. Keeping my notes for all my courses in one place is extremely convenient when have lots of things to work on. If I go to the library now, I don’t need to carry a bunch of paper notebooks, or search for a bunch of Microsoft Word documents. I use Evernote for everything so everything is in one, organized location.
In Evernote, I have created nine notebooks. One for each of my six courses I took this semester, one for my Kappa Delta sorority documents and resources, one personal one for things that are not school related, and one for general documents that don’t fit into a category. I use tags on my notes with class topics, so I can look at all my resources together before written assignments or exams. For example, some of my tags for this class include: “Ravitch”, “Context Report Project”, and “RI Strategic Plan Project”. Another organizational trick I use is merging notes. As I explained above, for the RI Strategic Plan Project, I merged my sources for my Background Research page. I have done this also for my WRT 106 class research for my final paper when writing an annotated bibliography.
Evernote has been an extremely helpful tool in the organization and creation of my Personal Knowledge Base. I have used Evernote heavily in this class, as well as others. I tend to use Evernote as a means of storage for my class work and project sources, as opposed to clipping articles to accumulate outside academic resources for myself. I believe my Evernote to be very organized by my standards, with the successful use of tags and merging. Since expanding my use from EDC 102H to all of my academic courses, I have actually recommended it to my roommate who was unsure of an organizational strategy for her academics this semester. Alike myself, she has had success with the application. I would continue to recommend it to any and all college students. My PKB created in Evernote this semester will be an everlasting resource for years to come, and I will definitely be continuing the use of the application for my courses next semester and beyond.
HalleGoldberg
In this class, Introduction to American Education, I was introduced to many personal knowledge based websites. Prior to this class, I did not use any of those websites nor did I even know they existed. Some of the personal knowledge based websites I used were Evernote, Evernote Clipper, Zotero, and some others. These websites were used to help organize notes, resources, articles, summaries, etc. These tools are useful because there is no right or wrong way to utilize them. The information that was saved using these tools was useful during class discussions, research projects, writing papers and looking back on something took notes on. Although I was not familiar with these personal knowledge based websites before the class, I used them to the best of my ability throughout the semester.
My most challenging class this semester was Sex and Western Society. When I selected the class I had no idea what I was in for. While I have no problem learning about sex, the class was very graphic and vulgar. It was unexpected. This class is new to the university and there is really no set curriculum for it. Usually one thinks that having two professors teach the class will be beneficial, however, for this class it was disastrous. The two professors had no communication with each other and it was very obvious. The work load was probably the most I had this semester. Not only was it several pages of multiple articles per night, the language which the articles were written in was hard to comprehend due to the fact they were from centuries ago. For many of the classes, we had a different professor come into class and give a lecture on a topic which they were experts on. This made it difficult to learn because of the various different teaching styles. I have been struggling all semester with this class, as well as many other students have been. We used group study groups to help teach the material to each other. We also made in depth study guides before the tests to go over.
At the beginning of the semester I was having trouble studying. I would be studying for hours but I would see no positive results. I decided to be proactive and make an appointment at the Academic Enhancement Center. That decision was one of the best things I did for myself. I went back to see my academic coach week after week. By doing this, I learned new ways to study. The first thing I learned about studying is that you can never over do it. You do not stop studying until you know it well enough to teach someone else. I learned that the best way to study was to make a study guide. I used the following steps to study: First go over the teachers notes that were posted on sakai, then add anything into your notes that you did not already have, highlight the main points of the definition, make sure you have an example to go along with the definition, finally, handwrite a study guide and go over the study guide multiple times. I also used different colored pens for different terms to that it was clear which term was which. After using this strategy, I did see positive results with my exam grades.
At the beginning of the semester I used Evernote a decent amount. As the semester went on, I did not use it that much. I did not feel that it did anything to enhance my learning. I did not have a problem taking handwritten notes, so why change whats working. I like handwriting my notes better, I feel that it is more effective and beneficial. I can remember things easier when I handwrite things. It was also very confusing to me, I did not know how to use it in the beginning of the semester and I did not learn how to utilize it better throughout the semester. I did use Evernote Clipper more than I used Evernote. The Clipper allowed me to save references or articles that I would need at a later time. I like this tool a lot because I can use it to save other references and articles non school related. It also is a better way to view the article in my opinion. All in all, I would rather handwrite my notes instead of using Evernote or other personal knowledge based websites.
While I believe technology is improving society and is beneficial, I think that there are some things that are better off staying traditional. It is important to know how to do things without using technology. Those who lived many centuries ago survived without technology, so I think we can too. There are certainly many great aspects of technology and things that make life easier, but it is important to remember that you can do things without relying on technology.
SamanthaKaiser
I had never really put much thought into my PKB. For the most part, I had bunch of documents saved in organized folders on my desktop and could usually retrieve them easily when needed. Until this semester, I hadn’t used any of the programs introduced to me to organize useful news and information or to document my research, notes, and assignments. As a girl who loves to hand write and only go to my computer when long writing assignments are due, getting used to taking my notes on Evernote, constantly updating different Wikipages, and keeping up to date with the class happenings online was very new for me. As time moved forward, I found myself to be an organizational whiz (a notebook free one at that). Overall, due to the formal introduction of online services like Evernote, Feedly, and Wikispaces, I have found a way to organize my PKB that helps me and will help me in the future recall and search for past assignments, thoughts, and research. It has offered me a successful way to store my knowledge in an efficient and reasonable manner.
I first started broadening my PKB when I encountered a few issues with one of my classes. My most difficult class this semester was one that I never expected to have an issue with. Intro to Psychology rocked my boat and I needed to find a solution to the problem as quickly as possible. I went to every class and was taking notes, but it wasn’t sinking in. I tried taking even more thorough notes and paying attention, but my ideas were scrambled and I needed to find a better way to organize my thoughts and assignments. I decided to ditch the notebook and start using Evernote to take notes, capture the class’ power point essentials, and remind myself of what was due throughout the week. I started reading the book and looking deeper into the information so I had a better understanding of the material. I used Evernote to write summaries of each chapter and term that I believed to be important to the course. Evernote made it easy for me to organize what was important for each quiz and what I needed to complete for my recitation later in the week. If I had to identify my problem, it would have to be my lack of involvement with the course at the beginning of the semester. I wasn’t keeping my head in touch with the material and keeping myself familiar with what I was learning. By using Evernote to organize my thinking and ideas, it was easier to just go to the application and do quick reviews in my free time to make sure my head was fresh and not forgetting important dates and facts. Evernote turned out to be a great addition to my difficult psychology course. It improved my organizational skills and allowed me to do much better in the class.
This semester proved to be very different from the others in that I needed to adopt new ways to study. I have always been a decent studier, but this semester like I mentioned before I ran into a couple of obstacles in my courses. Reading my notes and staying organized were great tools for me and proved to be very successful and they yielded great results, but my favorite new study method is a fairly obvious and menial one. During the semester it is always hard to sit down and read a book for pleasure. There is so much going on that I never got to read my favorite books and in my free time I found myself laying down and staring at the ceiling for a few minutes. I decided that the best way for me to relax was to read my textbooks. It sounds very nerdy, but it turned out to be the best way to relax, but study in disguise. At the end of each night, I devoted an hour or hour and a half to reading a book that was assigned and free writing about the topics or information on Evernote. This strategy was something that I never thought I would enjoy. This strategy ended up being extremely beneficial when it came to studying for tests and quizzes. When I began studying notes for the quizzes that were scheduled, I not only had a good memory of what I read, but I had an organized paragraph of thoughts that I could refer to in addition to notes I had taken in class. My new discovery of an old classic studying strategy was one of the best things that I did this semester. I became more active in my studies and could recall information much more easily.
My PKB has turned into an everlasting resource for my college career. Not only does it house educational information that I refer to almost every day when studying, writing papers, and doing homework, but it is a great way to organize interesting articles and thoughts I have in my every day life. Being able to access my notes anywhere that I have my computer has allowed me to be more active in classroom discussions and have more thoughtful inputs. I can refer to specific ideas I had months ago, with an article reference and quote from an author. This allows me to be more insightful and allows me to also add more information to old notes in the future. Overall, I am very happy about my PKB this fall semester and look forward to using it to my advantage in the future.
Using a PKB has made me a more organized and insightful learner. It allowed me to broaden my abilities as a learner. It allowed me to be thoughtful and organized in and out of the classroom. Evernote especially has helped me be a more involved learner and classroom contributor. PKBs are great for learners who are interested in broadening their knowledge and effectively sharing credible and thoughtful information with others. I hope that I continue to broaden my PKB with Evernote and Zotero in the future. They are great tools for teaching and learning and have helped me become a better learner this semester.
VictoriaKern
Personal Knowledge Base Reflection by Tory Kern
Taking EDC 102H has been transformational for me, and I am very thankful that I did not end my undergraduate career without learning the valuable lessons I learned in the class. Primarily, reflecting on the “game of school,” discussing current issues in education, and considering new ways to manage knowledge have made a huge impact on the way I approach learning. In this essay, I will describe how I used Evernote, Evernote Web Clipper, and Zotero to support my work in EDC 102H and other courses. Additionally, I will describe my Personal Knowledge Base (PKB)’s organizational scheme by explaining the structure of my notebooks and tags on Evernote. Furthermore, I will reflect on how I think that viewing my notes as a lasting resource might affect how I participate in future courses and life experiences. I am so thankful to have PKB tools integrated into my educational routine, and there are many ways in which I have grown because of my use of such tools.
Evernote, Evernote Web Clipper, and Zotero were all brand new to me upon entering EDC 102H and my unfamiliarity with them intimidated me. My fear of trying something new, such as Evernote, is related to my fear of failure that has been instilled in me from years of being praised for getting good grades. As I learned in this class, being reprimanded for struggling stunted my ability to grow into an adventurous and ambitious learner. So, knowing this, I took on the challenge of learning how to use the new web applications and I have been thriving with them. I use Evernote Web Clipper almost every day to clip articles, websites, and videos related to the subjects I am studying or interested in studying. Similarly, Zotero has become a large part of my academic success. Knowing that citing my sources is going to be easy has enabled me to start assignments sooner because I am less afraid of not doing well or taking a long time completing the assignment. I have gained a lot of confidence that I have needed for about a decade of my schooling, and Evernote and Zotero have made that change possible.
There is a specific way that I use Evernote that has enabled me to receive the benefits of managing knowledge with Evernote’s capabilities. On my Evernote application, I have four folders: EDC 102H, Honors Project, and Gender. Since all of my classes relate to education, gender, or both, my Evernote folders encompass everything I am currently studying. Some examples of tags I use are “education,” “marriage,” and “interpersonal violence,” but I have not actually taken advantage of the benefits of using tags. I feel that I am building the foundation of my PKB right now and that I will eventually have enough information in my Evernote folders to begin synthesizing articles based on tag similarity. I intend on improving the way I add to my PKB on Evernote by adding more than I currently do, using tags with general titles and specific subtitles, adding summaries of what I read to the articles I clip, and looking at the articles I clip after I clip them in order to summarize and synthesize new knowledge so that I can make connections between sources.
Viewing my notes as a lasting resource will definitely affect how I participate in future courses. While I have introduced Evernote into my life, I have not used it to it’s potential because I am so used to using information to complete an assignment rather than for the purpose of long-term intellectual growth. Currently, I use Evernote to keep a list of resources I plan on using to complete an assignment. In the future, I hope the spend time on Evernote looking over resources I have clipped even after I am done with my assignments so that the information I ingest can sink in and possibly be useful in the future. In addition, viewing my notes as a lasting resource will give me reason to work hard creating them and making sure that they are logically organized. I will start taking pictures of my notes and uploading them to Evernote because having one physical notebook for each class I am taking is not helping me make connections between subjects or between old and new information. I am looking forward to building a virtual bank of knowledge so that my hard work is more meaningful and beneficial to my personal and professional growth.
Learning about the “Game of School” redirected my efforts from trying to get good grades to acquiring knowledge for the sake of making connections and learning about topics I am passionate in. By creating a virtual Personal Knowledge Base has given me a sense of purpose while I am reading, listening, and searching online every day. What I once would have read and forgotten is now seen as an important addition to my Evernote and Zotero files. I have a much greater desire to research and write because doing I have such an easy way to save and cite interesting material. I use Evernote, Evernote Web Clipper, and Zotero whenever I find an article, video, blog, etc. that I am interested in and save it in case I might want to use it at a later date, which makes it much more enjoyable to do assignments when they are assigned because I have a large list of useful information that I have already collected. Having different Evernote folders for education, gender, and the classes/projects I am currently involved in helps me prepare for future assignments by getting me thinking about the topics and having a specific list for each subject before it is time to write a research paper or create a presentation. Lastly, viewing my notes as a lasting resource has enabled me to engage in my education in a meaningful way because I find more reason in the work that I do. Overall, EDC 102H has been an extremely significant class for me because of the experience I gained creating and utilizing my own Personal Knowledge Base.
IleanaLaGrutta
In EDC 102H this semester we were introduced to a few different forms of technology that can help us with our studies as we progress through college. Two extremely important resources that learned how to use were Evernote and Zotero. Zotero automatically creates your bibliographies for you. You don't even have to input the information for the source in most cases. For example, if you are looking at an article on the New York Times website, you can click on the Zotero icon next to the search bar in your browser and Zotero will automatically gather all of the information about the source including the author, publisher, etc. All you have to do is drag the source from Zotero onto your Word Document and the citation will be placed in your paper. Another form of technology we used was Evernote. Evernote is a "Personal Knowledge Base" where you can store articles on your computer, phone, tablet, etc. for easy access any time and anywhere. It basically works in the same way as Zotero in regards to the fact that you can look at an article on the internet, click the Evernote icon next to your search bar (known as the Web Clipper) and it will take a screenshot of the article and store it in your personal knowledge base. You can even high light important ideas in your article to make your research easier. In this reflection, I want to focus on Evernote and all of the positive experiences that I had with it.
Initially, I only used Evernote for this course. I predominantly used Evernote to store numerous articles that I found in regards to my topic of Central Falls for the Context Report or my topic of extracurricular activities for the Rhode Island Strategic Plan Project. By clipping the articles I found to Evernote and being able to high light certain information, it made my research much easier as I went back to sources to reference them for my projects. I also clipped all of my Academic Autobiographies to my personal knowledge base. Because of this, I know exactly where these autobiographies are and where they will be forever. Even if I eventually forget the password to my Wikispace, where the autobiographies originally were, I know that I will always have access to them whether it is on Evernote on my computer or on the Evernote App on my phone.
In complete honesty, I wasn't really a fan of Evernote at first. Like most new technology, it was confusing and difficult to work. However, with practice, I began to understand how useful it really was. Eventually, I broadened my use of Evernote. Not only was I using it for EDC 102H, I began to use it for matters related to my personal life. For example, Evernote became a way for me to store certain pages pertaining to my major and the required courses that I need to take here at URI in the future. I also recently clipped the Final Exam Schedule to my personal knowledge base. I even clipped my flu vaccine record. All throughout my life my parents stressed the importance of making copies of important documents. Whether it was confirmation emails or an application for a job that I applied to, my parents always told me to make a copy of it immediately in order to have it on file for my own records. By using Evernote, however, I no longer have to use a printer/copy machine and waste paper. Now, I can simply clip the form to my personal knowledge base and it will be there forever.
Through my continued use of Evernote, I have began to it upon myself to organize it in a way that is easy for me to understand. I admit that I haven't used any tags or note links. However, I have created a few different notebooks in order to organize each article that I clip and make them easier for me to find. Currently I have three notebooks titled "EDC 102H," "URI," and "Ileana LaGrutta's Notebook." Most obvious is my EDC 102H notebook. It is here where all of my articles for my Context Report, my Rhode Island Strategic Plan Project, and my Academic Autobiographies are placed. In my "URI" notebook I clip anything that has to do with URI. Whether it is the final exam schedule, the curriculum map for my major, or the group exercise schedule at the gym, this notebook will definitely be of use to me throughout these next four years. Lastly, the notebook titled "Ileana LaGrutta's Notebook" contains any documents that are important to my personal life. This includes my flu vaccine record as well as confirmation emails I have received in regards to items that I have purchased or events that I have signed up for. That being said, my personal knowledge base extends well beyond the classroom and can be used for many other aspects of my life.
In conclusion, EDC 102H was a great class. Not only did we learn about important issues around schools and educational reform, we also learned new forms of technology that we can use for the rest of our lives. In a world that is moving toward strictly digital and online resources, Evernote is definitely a great thing to have. I plan on using my personal knowledge base in order to store important documents pertaining to my personal life as well as continue to use it throughout the rest of my education whether that be here at URI or later on in graduate school. Evernote is an extremely beneficial tool and I would recommend it to anyone that wants to organize their life in a clear and simple way.
RebeccaLelli
Rebecca Lelli
Mr. Fogleman
American Education
1 December 2014
PKB Reflection
During my Introduction to American Education course I used several personal knowledge based websites that were knew to me. These included Zotero, Evernote, Evernote Web Clipper, and a few others. They were used to help organize and store information for use at another time, so the ideas and web pages would not be lost. The topics that these websites held onto was used in class discussions and as research for several different projects. These websites were used to make technology do more for the students in terms of organization and consolidation.
My most challenging class this semester would probably have to be Nutrition. In addition to a lecture twice a week, we had a lab once a week that lasted over an hour and a half. For these labs we were expected to compile what we ate for three days and then log it into the computer on a specific website to get the nutritional information. I guess the most challenging part of this class was that the lab work was so tedious and took so long to complete. At one point I left out a few pages of questions I had to answer because I had no idea that they even existed on Sakai. Maybe its just me, but I would pick physical carbon copies of worksheets over online worksheets any day. To be successful, I tried to divide up the work so that I only needed to either study or complete problems a little at a time; which also prevented me from going crazy.
Viewing my notes as a lasting resource could help me be successful in future college classes because many things I will learn in one course will apply to other courses. For example, I have found that things I learn in Psychology show up in almost every single other course I have been taking. In History it shows why people made world-changing decisions, in Nutrition it shows why people are so unhealthy when they have the opportunity to be, and in this class it explains why certain people support certain policies of running education. Even in a class like Chorus I have found Psychology applies. For example, one of the songs is a slave song, and we must put ourselves in that person's shoes in order to properly perform the piece. Another song we sing was written centuries ago, and is very sexist but we need to look through the glasses of that time period. All this sort of downgrading of women was commonplace, and nothing would be thought of it if we were living back then. To summarize, any knowledge from any subject I am learning know could be applied to help me better understand other disciplines.
I have not really used Evernote this semester because I never really understood how it worked to begin with. Every time I would clip a web page, it would never save the site properly, and I would have to look it up again manually anyway. But that is okay, because technology that I do not understand does not really appeal to my conservation of knowledge anyway. As I said before, I much prefer a physical copy of information, so keeping notebooks (real ones) filled with the notes I may need later makes me much happier. Just like all people learn differently, all people recall information differently.
Someone once told me that studies have been done proving that taking notes by hand increases the ability for the brain to remember the information it is taking down, while doing it by typing decreases memory of the content. While its good news for me, I worry about others who get so stuck in technology that they cannot remember how to do things any other way. It is almost as if just operating without a screen has become an art, and this art is being lost. Perhaps one day, the world will have to function without the aid of technology. If that time should come, I would be happy to let someone copy my notes. ;)
SamanthaLindquist
Samantha Lindquist Professor Fogleman EDC 102H PKB Reflection
As the year has gone by we have done plenty of things that have added our own personal knowledge. The idea of personal knowledge can be seen as a base where you can take ideas from one place and use them in another and vice versa. Like you can take knowledge you learned in a class on Nutrition and use it in a class on Education because you have to understand the health of your students and help take care of them if something is up or you could take something from a high school math teacher and use it in your everyday life and in your understanding of your own self. Like my math teacher in high school, junior year came in all dressed up because he had not done his laundry in over three weeks and was forced to dress up, this is what I use to remind me that I have to do my laundry or I will end up like him one day.
One way we really created a personal knowledge base was using a program called Evernote which allows the user to create notebooks of notes and pages that allow you to keep things that may be of some use at a later date. Personally I found Evernote to be helpful as I got better at working it on my computer. I began to use it in more than just my American Education class, because in that class I used it to make notes on the books we had to read and on the when we had to find articles for ourselves or for the group projects we did. I also started to use Evernote and the Web Clipper for my Research Writing class because it allowed me to find articles and place them there rather than just keeping extra tabs on my Firefox browser. It also made it easier to write notes on each of the articles I found for the different papers I had to do in the class. It was particularly helpful when I was doing an Informative paper in my Research Writing class because it allowed me to take all the articles I had found on Estonian Education, my topic of choice, and keep them in one place along with the notes I had taken on them. I also like the idea of Evernote because if I ever need those articles again whether it be an Education or History class I have them at my disposal always. You really never know when you could use something from another class so sometimes it is really helpful to keep most of it like you can do on Evernote.
For my personal knowledge base on Evernote it is definitely not as organized as I would like but as long as know where everything is it doesn’t really matter does it? On Evernote I have really two main notebooks right now one for American Education and one for Research Writing. I try to keep the notes that pertain to each class in their own folder. In the American Education notebook there are a few tabs that are sorting the information kept in the notebook better. One is the name of the author on one of the books we read, Suskind, another is Central Falls because I was in the Central Falls group project on the community reports in Rhode Island. These tabs make it easier to sort through all the information already in my Evernote from the class, they allow me to see the things that go together better than they would if they didn’t have the extra tabs. I also have notes under the ideas in Amanda Ripley’s book we read during the semester as well they are filed under her last name like the first book was. For the Research Writing notebook the tabs I have used are for the papers we wrote. The first being an Everyday activity paper then there is the Tab for the Informative paper, the one for the Annotated Bibliography and finally the last one for my Stress Research Paper and a lot of those notes are cross referenced with the Annotated Bibliography because I used the same topic for both.
I personally think the ideas behind a personal knowledge base and behind Evernote are extremely great and helpful not just for now but for the future because you really have no idea when you could use some of the things you collect now in the future. I have a feeling that I will be using the things I have collected for my American Education class at least for the next four years in college because there are a whole lot of Education classes that I have to take. I definitely feel that some of the things I have found would be used in the future because some of them are on the understanding of school districts and the money in schools and I know that when I become a teacher those are things I will have to know so it helps to have them from now. I also think that the stuff I have kept from Research Writing would be helpful because when I become a teacher and for when I have to deal with it myself having the research on stress will help me understand so much. You really have no idea when you could need something but if you feel like you should keep it I say do it.
The personal knowledge base is something that could be used for anything. It could be used in any class, in any situation of life really because it allows you to take the things you learn in any part of your life and use them in another. Everything you learn in life, at least in my opinion can be used interchangeably because there are so many skills you know that are used in everything you do and can be used in your life for the rest of your life. Whether it is life skills or how to memorize seemingly useless facts, who know is could in hand one day and you should be there to use it every day.
MelanieMertens
Today there are many innovative technologies that can help people organize their work right on their computers. Some of these technologies include Evernote, Zotero, and OneNote. All of these technologies work well to organize work as well as sources for projects and other important information. Collectively these programs may work very well to keep a personal knowledge base containing information from multiple sources on multiple ideas.
Evernote is a program focused on helping to organize notes and articles for whatever purpose a person needs it. In my case this meant organizing all my notes for my psychology, nutrition, and education classes. Within these notebooks, I kept tabs on each entry identifying which exam it was on and relationships it may have to other work. I found this program very useful because rather than having various word documents, my work is kept all in the same place for me to access from any location. That brings me to another benefit of Evernote, it is accessible on multiple devices. Whenever I had a psychology quiz, rather than bringing my computer to recitation to study, I was able to look at my notes on my phone and edit them if I needed to add any new information. Evernote helps to set one up for productivity which is why it is a great program.
Zotero is an organizational program which focuses on collecting sources. This program can be very useful when compiling a bibliography for a project or even taking note of interesting articles in an online newspaper. Although this is true, I found this method of resource keeping somewhat confusing and chose not to use it. In some cases I could the button which added a source to my Zotero database did not appear and I could not figure out the proper way to add a source to Zotero by hand. In the end I decided that I would rather create bibliographies and work cited pages by hand because in doing that I used a book from my writing class and knew exactly what to put for each source. This is as opposed to when I had to try to find the elements asked for by Zotero and I did not know which were necessary and which were not. Although Zotero did not work well for me, it may be a very useful resource for someone who would has time to learn how it works and in that case it may be very beneficial in keeping a personal knowledge base.
Finally, I recently discovered a program on my computer called OneNote. This program is very similar to Evernote with a few other benefits. OneNote is a note collection program provided with the purchase of Microsoft Office. With this program, one may organize information in ways very similar to those of Evernote. Although I have not been using this program very long, I really like it because not only can you collect notes in a notebook adding in separate section for different topics and individual pages within that, you can also upload other documents. With this ability one may use OneNote to make notes on a document, image, or article whichever has been uploaded. I found this very useful when trying to highlight a digital article for Jumpstart and would imagine it would be useful in the case of other works too. Additionally, because OneNote is a Microsoft program, the format of the program itself is very familiar to me and would be to others who looked to use it.
Overall, I really like the program OneNote and may switch to it from Evernote and test it out next semester. I figure that I should try out multiple programs which work to collect information before settling down to use just one. Maybe I will even give Zotero another try too because it could come in handy when creating source pages for projects. I think that over winter break, I will look more into these programs to find which will work best for me and recommend that others do the same. Having a personal knowledge base is very beneficial to students who want to keep work organized and do not want to throw away a notebook full of knowledge at the end of the semester.
MadelineMucci
Madeline Mucci
PKB Reflection
Describe your most consistent challenge in your learning this semester? What was your most difficult class? What made it so hard? What learning strategies did you use try to be successful?
My most consistent challenge in my learning this semester has been the fact that, in all of my classes, my learning now comes from multiple resources and perspectives, whereas in high school I learned only from my teacher and the books or text books the teacher provided. More frequently now than ever I am pushed to explore new databases because much of my learning in college is individual. Since we are responsible for much of our own learning, professors have more time to show us different online resources to use, and the means to send us these resources through Sakai. I am a person of habit and a very visual and hands on type of learner, so I’ve always loved and worked best when I’m given a book or reading and told to learn it or memorize it. Instead, we’re now given concepts and topics by our professors, which we are expected to learn about to the best of our abilities. This threw me off at first because I’ve never had to be so responsible for my own learning and my learning has also never mattered as much as it does now; however, I am now pretty comfortable with this style and it allows me to learn the way I want to and generally at my own pace and on my own time. To try to be successful with this new sense of educational responsibility, I have become more organized. I keep track of everything I have to do, along with the resources I know of to help me accomplish it. College seems like a time when I have to use everything I’ve already learned and combine it with the new things I’m learning to form a knowledge base that I can then take on to the next classes with me, and so on.
Describe at least one strategy that YOU developed or adopted this semester to augment how you learn. This could be a study strategy that you have adapted, a way to organize your research, or some other way of collecting or organizing new knowledge for writing, planning, etc. Did your PKB contribute to this strategy? If so, explain how.
This semester I have gotten into the habit of finding and bookmarking articles and websites I know will help me learn and stay organized. I have made folders on my computer of different types of websites and I use this whenever I’m stuck on an idea or assignment. Additionally, as well as using my planner I make a note in my app “Stickies” on my laptop with every class on it and everything I know of that has to be done at some point for each and it’s really satisfying to be able to clear things from that list. I have the folders of websites organized under topics such as “Environment,” “Education,” “Math,” “Art,” and “URI.” My Evernote PKB hasn’t really contributed to this just because it’s my own little makeshift knowledge base that I find much more aesthetically and organizationally pleasing than Evernote. I can now keep these folders and add to them throughout my time here at URI and hopefully beyond, and I can create new ones as well.
If you decided not use Evernote this semester, explain why not. Describe what you have chosen to do instead in terms of organizing your notes in your courses, conducting research, etc.
I decided not to use Evernote this semester because I wasn’t completely comfortable with it or storing information in it. I am more comfortable organizing information and data completely my own way, so instead I used my aforementioned method of collecting websites and articles in different folders on my laptop’s desktop. Evernote is definitely an awesome application and many people love it, but I don’t like changing things about my daily routine or the way I learn and study and gather information, so I stuck to what I’m comfortable with for this semester. With such a big transition as to where I live and what I’m learning, I needed to keep the comfort of having my own ways of studying and organizing that I’ve always used.
VictoriaPetit
In the beginning of the semester I did not think I would have a positive experience with using technology so heavily in class. In fact, in high school we were discouraged from bringing laptops and tablets to class. I had very little prior knowledge of technology coming into college; I thought I would struggle to use an online Personal Knowledge Base. I was fond of note-taking with a pen and paper. To my surprise, I developed many skills through keeping a PKB on Evernote and learned techniques that I didn’t know existed.
As a “type A” person with many obsessive-compulsive antics when it comes to my education, I was satisfied with the organization options that Evernote provides. I had three different notebooks: in-class notes, out of class notes, and writing notes. I actually started using Evernote to organize notes for my research paper in my writing class, hence the ‘writing notes’ category. The in-class/out of class notes were separated to make recalling things I researched on my own easier; I didn’t have to look through all my class notes. I also used several different tags throughout the semester; I have one tag for each book that we read and one tag for each project we did. I also have a tag for ‘new information’ which are things that I didn’t know in the beginning of the semester that I thought was interesting, like what charter schools are.
My Evernote notes will certainly be used in the future. I have already made connections between things I learned in EDC and other classes, especially psychology. Since I want to be a school psychologist, learning about the education system is important. Evernote is so organized that finding specific information is an easy task. As skeptical as I was about using technology, I think it is a good way to store notes. This way the notes will never get lost like notebooks and paper could. It is easily accessible and future projects may require the information I learned over the semester that is kept in my PKB.
My favorite new skill I learned this semester was how to clip articles and web pages and save them on Evernote. This is much more convenient than Bookmarking a website to a computer since the Evernote Web Clipper allows you to clip only the information you want to be saved; you can highlight a specific portion or clip the whole website. When referring back to it on Evernote, the web link is saved too for easy access back to the original website. This is especially useful when doing research online.
I was pleasantly surprised with the PKB. It was an efficient way for me to keep track of my notes. This class had several projects that required research; saving the information researched on the internet was easy via the Evernote Web Clipper. I will continue to use Evernote in the future to store and organize my notes for other classes. Using tags will make it easy to connect ideas from all different classes which enhances my educational experience.
RyanSmith
Ryan Smith
Jay Fogleman
EDC 102H
5 December 2014 PKB Reflection
Overall, my most consistent challenge in learning this semester has been staying focused on my work. Concentration throughout my classes has always been an issue for me, and that didn’t change when I entered college. My hardest class this semester was likely my microeconomics class. Even though I expected my calculus class to surpass it in difficulty, I was surprised to find myself struggling in microeconomics. Grasping general concepts didn’t seem much of an issue when the professor was teaching in class. For the most part, it seemed as if common sense solutions were being applied to economic problems. However, when it came time to test my knowledge, I found myself lost.
In order to be successful in college, especially with a concentration problem, I knew it was essential to stay organized. Early on in the semester I realized this and bought a planner to list out my assignments. Also, I began to utilize the “Reminders” app on my phone to stay on top of my work. Organization often involves creating a schedule. Throughout the semester, I tried to balance my work equally so that procrastination would become less of a problem. Additionally, I organized some of my work using Google Docs. For example, every day in my history of jazz class I took notes in a Google Doc so that I could easily refer to any section of my work by using the “find” function and typing in a key word.
One strategy that I developed this semester that augmented the way that I learn was taking notes while reading. For example, while reading the various literary works required for this course, I found it helpful to note the most essential points being touched upon. Another strategy that I used in nearly every class was to read ahead in the textbook so I could go into the following class already having been exposed to the material. This was probably the most advantageous of my learning strategies developed, as it would give me an advantage and a comfortable feeling of already being knowledgeable with new material.
This semester, I used Evernote sparingly. When first introduced to some of its functions, I thought Evernote was an interesting and potentially helpful resource. However, I realized I was more comfortable with my current, familiar ways of organization. Therefore, Evernote became unnecessary for me. In fact, my personal knowledge base varied from class to class. All of my lessons, programs, and acquired information from my computer science class is stored on my Khan Academy profile. As I mentioned before, all of my notes for my history of jazz class are stored on a Google Doc, while my information comes from a textbook. For my microeconomics class, my resources are either in a notebook that I wrote in, in a textbook, or available on PowerPoint slides on Sakai. For calculus, my information is stored in my binder or in a textbook purchased at the beginning of the semester. For this class, my notes reside in word documents and sparingly in my Evernote.
When I did use Evernote, I was impressed with its capabilities and compatibility. The fact that I can access my Evernote both on my computer and my phone is quite convenient. As far as information is concerned, I used Evernote to store information that I initially acquired for my context report. Other than that, I had no use for the software, as the majority of my personal knowledge base is stored offline in Word Documents. For the most part, my personal knowledge base shifted in the direction of the cloud. Regardless of how much I used each resource this semester, I relied on web-based applications to store information gained throughout my classes.
AdamSokolowski
Adam Sokolowski EDC 102H F14 - PKB Reflections
This class allowed me to develop skills that I used to create a Personal Knowledge Base (PKB) and expand upon it to organize ideas that were used in class discussions and class assignments. Evernote was a very useful tool in the class because it supported work I did in the class allowing me to organize material I have found for the class with the tabs it allowed me to place on internet documents I found. This provided a very effective organizational scheme because I was able to tag documents to be a part of two different notebooks which allowed me to connect information from many different sources together for use in an assignment. Evernote was not the only portion of the PKB I used to aid my studies in this class and other classes, I used Zotero for the final project in the class after I managed to get it to start working and I used the Khan Academy website to aid in my studies for other classes and it became a very useful learning strategy. My PKB was based off the ways I used Evernote and the web clipper to support work in this class, my overall PKB organizational scheme I have created for the class which includes Zotero and electronic sources, and I also used the Khan Academy website I learned about in class as a learning strategy to aid my education in other classes.
Evernote and the Evernote Web Clipper were used to support the work I have done in this class because it allowed me to keep track and organize useful information I have found online. I used Evernote was used to gather census data for my project on central falls and to organize database searches and articles I used for my final class assignment on fair funding. Each article or database I tagged had a specific tag that correlated it with the project it belonged too, which made it easy to go to my tags page on Evernote and have all of my references organized by what assignment they belonged too. I would also be able to tag the page if it was a chart from a database that I wanted to reference, and I would be able to tag the URL of the page in order to revisit it and click on more related articles or links from the page itself. This allowed for me to look up and organize information and articles very efficiently and was a much better system than using bookmarks which is what I have been doing in the past.
My overall PKB organizational scheme was mainly based of electronic sources I have found and organized through Evernote and not so much on planning activities such as mind map. It mostly consisted of the discovery and organization of various online articles and databases that were organized through Evernote. I created a notebook for this class and also one for my personal searches which mostly consisted of random science articles I like to read in my free time. The notebook for this class titled EDC 102H used tags as subcategories within it based on which assignments the articles and data belonged too. To site these articles and databases I used Zotero which turned out to be a very effective tool when I learned how to get it to work. It provided me with accurate citations that were able to obtain by book marking pages in Zotero and viewing them later where the resources are stored.
The technology we used in the class this semester helped me develop a type of learning strategy if it can be called one, and that was to use online sources like khan academy to aid me in my other classes. My most difficult class so far this semester has been organic chemistry and reading the textbook to study for the class doesn’t always work the best for me as a study guide. I feel that I am a visual learner and learn better while listening to someone teach and showing how a particular thing works. I knew about Khan Academy as a few YouTube videos that I would occasionally use to help me understand a topic I was struggling on by looking it up in the search bar. When I discovered the website from a discussion in class I was amazed at how much material was on there and that whole courses were laid out in the form of videos. It became a great tool and asset for studying in that class because it allowed me to visually be taught by a teacher that I had access to whenever I needed to review.
This is how my PKB was used inside and outside of this class, there were the ways I used Evernote and the web clipper to support work in this class, my overall PKB organizational scheme I have created for the class which includes Zotero, and the use of the Khan Academy website I learned about in class as a learning strategy to aid my education in other classes. My personal knowledge based was used to organize my resources gathered in this class, cite them correctly, and organize them n a way that was most effective for me to use. The knowledge I also gained in class such as the Khan Academy website really benefited me in other classes such as chemistry and I plan to use it on other classes in the future.
AmandaWard
Technology can be a majorly useful resource when it comes to school. It can speed up the processes of research, citing, and discovery. Within this fall semester, our class was introduced to the different tools of Evernote, Evernote Web Clipper, Feedly, and Zotero. These tools helped our class to overcome challenges, support our work, and create new organization and studying strategies.
Evernote and Evernote Web Clipper were large supporters of my work in this course. An online notebook, where one can record anything they desire and also snap pictures of anything on their screen, had never been introduced to me before. It is a very cool and effective concept. Evernote has so many possibilities in which it can be utilized. In addition to taking notes, Evernote allows you to create different notebooks, gives access to an atlas, allows you to sync your Evernote with others, allows you to share your Evernote, and also helps you set reminders. Evernote helped me to keep all my work and notes in one place, and not loose track of things that I wanted or needed to record. Evernote Web Clipper allowed me to snap images of whatever was on my screen and then synced the image into my Evernote application. The Web Clipper was used if I chose to snap a picture of an article, graph, or quick link to a youtube video. In addition to this, the Web Clipper can capture web clips, annotate pages, and record audio. Evernote helped me stay organized and introduced me to more efficient ways to gather information.
My Personal Knowledge Base (PKB) was advanced in the areas of American Public Education and school reforms by using Evernote. I was able to clip articles and charts while doing projects on Rhode Island Education reforms. Articles clipped from Feedly, a tool that supplies thousands of articles from numerous sources, were very helpful in the areas of education reforms. I was also able to save notes on other people’s projects and things we reviewed in class. My Personal Knowledge Base now consists of articles, notes, references, and reflections on ideas. Evernote helped to advance my knowledge on school reforms in America and around the world.
The most consistent challenge with learning this semester was staying on top of work assigned, retaining information previously learned, and properly citing in papers. Procrastination has always been a personal problem and this year the realization that preparation and time are essential elements in doing work finally dawned on me. The most difficult classes that I have experienced are most definitely Art History 251 and Nutrition 210. These classes are purely made up of memorization, which takes time, dedication, and a lot of repetition. This semester I adopted the strategy of organizing new knowledge more efficiently and planning out a work schedule better, which helped me retain information and stay on top of my workload. With the application Zotero I was able to have something that would automatically cite things for me, which helped me to properly add citations to my papers.
In the future I will now be able to use Evernote to store notes from my other classes. This semester I only used it for notes within our Education class. Having all my notes in the same place on an online source will help me to stay more organized and assist me in studying for exams. My participation in other courses will improve with the lasting resources of Evernote, Evernote Web Clipper, Feedly, and Zotero.
EmmaZingg
Although I say that I did not use Evernote every day in class there were times in which I was researching for Education 102 in which I found being able to clip possible sources quiet helpful so I could refer back to them days later without having to read the entire article. But for me I never became comfortable with Evernotes formatting. I did not figure out how to use the notebooks or tags in a way that helped me, rather they made me feel more scattered than I was before.
My most difficult class by far was Honors Ethics at Play. This was most likely because I could not use my laptop or phone during class some type of penalty. This resulted in my option of using Evernote to be eliminated. I never made a conscience discussion to not use Evernote but having one of my two other classes be Math, it did not seem useful to being using my personal knowledge base for just Communication Fundamentals, and Education 102. I did not feel that using Evernote would help me broaden my knowledge more so than just taking hard notes.
Personally for me, I am much more excited by the possibility of using the Smart Pen because for my major being math and secondary education I see this being much more helpful. I can see that in a large lecture when the teacher is both presenting a power point and teaching from it, this could be very helpful cause I have trouble trying to write both what the teacher is saying and the power point down in my notes. Not only for my math notes but I could see second semester this also benefitting me in my Psychology 113. This piece of technology will also be very helpful in my classes such as calculus where the teacher is explaining his work as he writes because I will be able to come to a full understanding of the class that I am not receiving right now. I will also potentially be able to add my notes from Smart Pen onto my computer so with math classes that build on top of each other I will be able to reference these notes in the future and not worry about finding a place to keep them on my desk!
I wanted to mention that although I have not been using Evernote to its full advantage, I have been loving using Zetero. Although some websites will not directly link to Zetero, it is very helpful to be able to enter the information from the website and be able to change the format from MLA to APA format. My only regret relating to Zetero is that I was not aware of this tool earlier, such as in high school!
Overall, although I personal made the decision to not use Evernote I do not think it speaks to Dr. Folgleman's ability to show us how to use this, but rather I knew there was not much opportunity for me to be able to use Evernote in my other classes. I felt any notes that I would take on it would be lost because they would not be connected at all with my other notes. I choose to instead write notes in the books that were reading and discussing in Education 102. For me this works better when I'm looking back at my work. When it came time for research I just put my notes in a simple word document, because this where I would later write my reflection/paper from.
Personal Knowledge Base Reflection
Marcy AbongI have enjoyed all my classes this semester and even found something I want to major in. I came in this fall with the intent of "figuring out what I want to do," which is the reason I took EDC 102, to see if I want to teach. I don't. I have thoroughly enjoyed the class, despite the fact that I do not want to pursue an educational career. Something I found valuable were the many discussions we had; especially since I felt like I had some intelligent and supportable points, thanks to the many books and articles we read over the semester. My personal knowledge base (PKB) has undoubtedly contributed to my academic success this fall, not only in EDC, but in my other classes as well.
In this class specifically, I used the Evernote Web Clipper all the time when conducting research for our various assignments. For example, when looking for articles to build my Rhode Island Strategic Project Plan on, I clipped and clipped, whenever I found something that seemed pertinent. After collecting a multitude of promising pieces, I reviewed them with ease, and was able to pick the most appropriate ones. This ability to take clip articles has been very helpful. It is so much more efficient than bookmarking, because you can actually see a picture of the page, and instantly remember it. I quickly began to use Evernote for my other classes.
The second notebook I created on Evernote was for my communicative disorders class, which is divided into two sections: Speech Language Pathology, and Audiology. I became very interested in these subjects, and used Evernote to clip note only study materials, such as YouTube videos about the anatomy of the ear, but also documentaries, interviews, etc. This helped me gain factual knowledge, and also a holistic appreciation of the course. I then made a notebook for psychology class, and used it in a similar manner. I also used Zotero often when writing papers for both EDC and psychology, it saved me a lot of time and effort.
A strategy I adopted this semester was watching instructional videos on YouTube. I did this a little last year for my biology and chemistry classes, mostly using Khan Academy, and found it helpful. This semester, I brought it to a whole new level with Evernote. I not only found great videos, but I saved them to a specific notebook for their respective class, and was able to revisit them. I definitely started to enjoy the subject matter more so.
Overall, the PKB experience has been very positive. I benefited in numerous ways, from study habits, to level of interest. I even tried to turn my dad onto Evernote and Zotero, as he is currently writing his dissertation, but he, like many adults, prefers the "old-fashioned way." To each their own I suppose, but I know I will no longer be creating my own citations. These programs are a way that we can use technology to enhance our educational experience. Technology offers so many helpful programs we are not taking advantage of. Many people think that technology in the classroom is unnecessary, but it can be used effectively. It can make our lives so much simpler, allowing for more learning time.
My favorite part about Evernote is how organized it is. I use books and tags to keep my Evernotes in order. For this class, I have a book titled American Education and in it I have separate notes. I have a new note for each book we discussed in class and within these notes I have different sections for each chapter, followed by bulleted notes. I also have a note where I keep ideas from class discussions and a note for random ideas. Whenever I use the Evernote web clipper I make sure to tag it as American Education and maybe another tag that is more specific to what it is that I am clipping. I also use Evernote for my Educational Psychology course and for that class I have a separate book.
Note taking using Evernote is more beneficial than regular note taking for a couple of reasons. For one, when writing notes down by hand, people often use short hand phrases and slang when they do not have enough time to write their whole idea down. So later, when they go back to find a piece of information that they need to write a paper or just to look smart in class, they do not understand what it is that they meant by their slang and their scribbles on paper lose all value. However, when using Evernote, every thought can be captured and saved for future use because typing is more efficient. Each thought can be more complete and more easily accessible. Another benefit of using Evernote for note taking is that it helps to keep ideas organized. The organization allows the brain to process information fluently and one idea leads or connects to another, therefore optimizing the life and value or each idea. Hand-taken notes do not usually allow this free range of thought and ideas can lose purpose, direction, and their potential to become more than an idea. Both efficiency and organization are the benefits of Evernote that I have come across in my experience this semester. For these reasons, I believe that PKB will heighten my learning in the time to come.
Viewing my notes as a lasting resource on Evernote will enhance my engagement in my future course taking. Even using it for class this semester I found that having my notes in front of me, clear and presentable, helped me to be more active of a thinker. When using Evernote I can pick up from the last thought I had and build upon my previous ideas with new ideas. If someone were to raise an issue worth discussing during class, I could look at my notes and immediately know what thoughts I have on the subject that might round out a quality class discussion. In this way, Evernote has helped create insightful banter and creative thinking in our class, as it will in following discussion-filled courses. If I ever have a topic pop up in a future class that I have already taken notes on with Evernote, I can easily locate my notes and pick up from where I left off, while adding meaningful and purposeful insight to the discussion.
Using a personal knowledge base has opened my mind up to educational possibilities. My go to for the semester was Evernote. The efficiency and organization of PKBs allow for all sorts of open and creative thinking. PKBs can be catered to one’s preferred organization style, allow for easy note taking or citing, and can possibly keep learners engaged and connected throughout their studies. The use of personal knowledge bases in a classroom helps round out a conversation in a way that keeps everyone involved thinking, wondering, and creating. PKBs are great tools for optimal learning.
My personal favorite program easily became Evernote. Evernote is essentially an online notebook. It is a downloadable program where you can create individual notebooks, organize notes you take, and never pick up a pen again! I enjoyed this eco-friendly aspect to Evernote and I did not have to carry another notebook in my backpack. Almost every day, we have in class discussions on readings or simply events going on in education today. Every time we started talking, it was so easy to pull up my EDC 102 notebook and start writing down bullet points. Evernote also has an "Evernote Web Clipper" in which you can easily "clip" articles, videos, photos, or anything you wish into your Evernote. This is so convenient when you want to keep an article for future reference or see something interesting you would like to keep.
As I started to grow more and more comfortable with Evernote, I began using it for other things. I started using this program for some of my other courses. I have tabs for my Gender and Women Studies and Communications courses which I use very regularly. I find it so much easier to pull out my laptop and just type away. It is so much faster than writing and I feel like I am able to pay attention to what my professors are saying because I do not spend as much time writing things down. It has become such a useful part of my education. I could not imagine starting my college career without it!
Viewing my notes on Evernote as a lasting resource will definitely affect how I participate in future classes. Being able to have all my notes conveniently in one place has been so cool! During second semester, I will keep adding different notebooks to my Evernote for my future classes. Having all my old notes to look back on will be an awesome tool to utilize throughout the rest of my schooling. It's like my own personal data base! I will now be able to go back to classes I took my freshman year as references for the future. I am so glad that I was introduced to this new program.
Although, I was not pleased with developing my Personal Knowledge Base. I could not imagine going through this class or the rest of my college career without things like Evernote or Zotero. A lot of people argue that technology is ineffective in classrooms today. However, if you download the right programs and utilize them correctly, then there can be many benefits to technology. For example, these new programs have helped me with sources for papers, organize my notes, and easily find videos, articles, and photos related to topics introduced in class. I will definitely be continuing to use my Personal Knowledge Base and know that it will help me in my future endeavors as a student! :)
My courses this semester were not extremely challenging to me, since many were general education courses. Classes like communication, theatre and general psychology were not difficult to me and I managed to do extremely well in them. Seeing as I am an education major, EDC 102 is a class that I am required to take. Being also an English major, meant that I had to take a short story English class as well. I found that these two courses were my most challenging. English has always been a topic that I am fond of and generally do well in. However, this course was quite challenging because I constantly kept getting the same 88% on each essay I wrote, even when I worked hard to improve them and even asked my professor what I was doing wrong. It was a constant struggle to do better, but I suppose that is not a bad problem to have. The education class was extremely challenging to me because as I said before, I am terrible with technology and this was a class that was centered on many different Personal Knowledge Bases (PKB’s). I was constantly challenged with submitting information to Wikispaces, making a Mindmap, using Zotero and following it all with Evernote, even though I don’t really know how half of that even works! I am a girl who is used to a good ol’ pen and paper, so this really was the first time that I have dealt with any real type of PKB’s like this. Countless times I tried to work with all of the PKB’s in my education class but I felt hopeless. I became very disorganized and confused with my classes. I often sought help from my peers and teacher and finally began to understand these new resources.
I never thought that Evernote would help me, but halfway through the semester, I became really invested in it and started taking all of my class notes on Evernote. I have found that the more you contribute to it, the more beneficial it becomes. Although I haven’t added personal items to Evernote, I can see how it would be very useful. It is nice to have all of your ideas, webpage clippings, etc. all in the same place and easily accessible. Each note of mine is “tagged” and labeled, so I am never disorganized or can’t find my work. Each class has its own tab with a “notebook” that I can keep all of my notes in. Not to mention, typing is much more efficient than writing, and although I am not a whiz with computers, typing fast is one of my strong points. I am much more efficient with taking notes on computers and tend to get more of the information since I am not focusing on slowly taking down the notes by hand. Also, I can continue my notes exactly where I left them and not have to worry about not having enough notebook pages. When I was researching for projects in class, I used the Webclipper to capture the bits of information I needed as I went. This helped me to be really productive. I knew exactly where the information I needed was, as opposed to having to search through piles of papers or different word documents/ websites to find it. Although I still did suffer from technical difficulties and often didn’t understand big parts of Evernote, the parts I did understand really helped me succeed in class!
My favorite part about Evernote is the fact that it is going to be there forever. When I am a teacher years from now, I might want to look back on my notes when I come across a problem or want some statistics on schooling. I never know when or if I am going to need these notes again, but now I don’t have to worry because they’re on Evernote if I ever do! Typically I save a great deal of papers from the classes I take and keep them in binders so that I can go back to them if I ever need them. This method has worked for me thus far, but over the years it consumes a great deal of space. With Evernote, it is all on digital files, so it is all still there but it is transportable and takes up no physical space. With these notes as a lasting resource, future courses in education may be easier since I have all of my prior notes at the click of a button. This may put me at a higher advantage to many other students who don’t have their old notes and don’t remember what they learned in previous classes.
Although I am not a strong supporter of technology and definitely not one who understands it well, I will admit that I think PKB’s were very beneficial in my learning experiences at URI, especially in classes where I need to take a great deal of notes. Evernote is an efficient and productive way to keep on top of my work but also pay attention to class and be an attentive and creative learner. I cannot argue with the fact that technology is ever prevalent in our society and is growing larger and larger each and every day. Although I am not sure that I am ready to jump head-first onto the bandwagon, I am now more willing to test the waters and am glad I was introduced to these PKB’s.
My first semester of college was much different than I expected. It flew by and I am having trouble wrapping my head around the fact its almost finals week. By far the most difficult class I had this semester was nutrition. My high school was not incredibly prestigious and I was always the kind of student that could get good grades without having to study. Nutrition was a wake up call for me and I am very happy I decided to take it first semester. It made me realize I would need to work a lot harder to get through my college courses and that I would need to dedicate a lot more time than I ever have to my work and studying. I really liked nutrition, which helped because I apply myself much more in areas I am interested in. I actually decided to change my major to nutrition and dietetics after about a month in the course. I found this course so difficult because it involves a lot of chemistry, which is a subject I have not had since sophomore year of high school. I created new study habits for this class that I also used for the rest of my classes. This included studying not just the night before the exam and using multiple sources to make sure I covered all of the information. I used Evernote to keep a personal knowledge base for all of my classes.
I used Evernote for just about everything in this course throughout the semester. I used it to record notes for the chapters of the books we read which was incredibly helpful for class discussions. I used it to record important dates of assignments that were due, including this one. The most beneficial use of evernote for me was the web clipper. I found and clipped all of the articles for my Rhode Island Strategic Plan Project during the first few classes in the library. When I went to write my summaries all of the information and sources I needed were already there and easy to access. When I needed to go to the original website I could just click the URL. I also downloaded the Evernote app on my phone so that I could look at it whenever I did not have my computer. Zotero was also an incredibly beneficial tool. Now that I use it I do not remember how I cited things before. When my zotero disconnected the other day I was struggling to find how to source information the way that I used to it took me much longer. Throughout this course Evernote and the web clipper have been extremely useful tools along with zotero and I plan on continuing to use them throughout the rest of my college career. Personally I was not a big fan of the Mindmap but I think that is just because I did not entirely understand how to use it, and the few times we used it many of my classmates just played around with it. I feel if I knew how to use it to its full potential I would like it more.
I continued to use my PKB for just about everything. I had been introduced to Evernote originally my junior year of high school. One of my teachers won iPads for her class and we had the opportunity to use evernote. She was not very well trained with the iPads or evernote, if she had been I think it would have been utilized much better at the time. I do not have my old account information but it would be interesting to see what is in my old PKB. With new knowledge of all that evernote could do I found it much more useful. I used it to keep notes in every single class except one. The one class I did not us it in was Com 101 because my teacher did not allow us to takes notes on a computer, which personally I found it ridiculous its 2014. The more accustomed I became with evernote the more I did with it. My favorite feature was the ability to search notes. Whenever I was studying and could not remember something I would just type it in the bar and whatever I was looking for could easily be found. This is so much more convenient than sorting through a notebook wondering when I took something down. It definitely makes note-taking, studying and learning easier overall. Zotero makes my life so much easier as well. I used it for citations in every class, including com 101 even though she has something against convenient technology, and in journalism for a few papers. For a giant group presentation in com we used google drives. This method worked out very well creating our project because we did not have to meet outside of class and arrange around everyone’s schedule. We could all access the same presentation and outline over the internet. I would not have known how to use that if not for this course. On the day of the presentation my computer locked me out of my Google account saying the page was invalid. Because I am not great with technology it took me a few days to figure out the problem. That is the one and only setback I have had using any of these applications.
The organization I have for my personal knowledge base took me a while to figure out. In evernote I have the list of each note in order by the date they were created on the left. On the right I have a preview of the note I have chosen. Recently my search bar and option to create a new note have disappeared from the top of my window. They reappear if I expand my window to the full screen, which I find very strange. I have 4 notebooks one for this course, psychology, nutrition and journalism. I have only used a few tags and only in this course. I used a tag for each book we read, and a tag for special education in Finland, which was my RI strategic plan project question. I recently discovered how to stack notebooks too so I will definitely do that come the end of the semester!
A strategy that I adopted this semester to help augment how I learn is trying to utilize all of the technology I have to the best that I can. I have never been incredibly good with technology of any kind especially computers. Throughout the entire semester I tried to put all of my notes and anything I needed to know into my PKB. It would be much easier for me to keep everything I need to know in one searchable database. This way I can study from it, look things up and even make connections between my classes because it is so much easier to find information. Its especially beneficial right before a big exam when I can quickly read over my notes on my phone before it starts. I have been to the help desk in the library a few times for computer help but I am definitely improving! I feel like there is a great amount of technology and applications available that if used the right way can benefit education. I think that using the PKB has definitely enhanced my education and made my first semester a little easier. I will definitely keep this PKB for the rest of my college career. It has a lot of information in it already and this is information I could need again in the future. It is definitely worth keeping, especially for my nutrition class because that is my major. After 4 years of college I will have hundreds of notes of information at my fingertips on my phone and computer that I can access whenever I need. I know I will not be able to remember everything I am told in every class of college but having it on a database I can search is using technology the right way. I am not sure why anyone would not want to utilize this!
This was the first class where I really utilized technology in my learning. Creating a Personal Knowledge Base has been very beneficial in my organization in this class. After having a class with the PKB I can’t imagine a class without it. It was helpful when I needed to recall what I have previously read or topics that we have discussed in class. I can see myself expanding my PKB as I continue on my education.
This semester I have had a couple of challenges in my learning. For example, I struggle with keeping up to date with all of the different information I have in all of my classes. With taking five classes with all completely different set of notes I have trouble with keeping everything straight and organized. My most difficult class this semester is CMD 375, Language Development. It is so hard because it is a lecture of around 100 students. My professor stands in front of the class and reads off his word document to my class for an hour and fifteen minutes. I struggle with paying attention, especially when the class is not interactive or discussion based at all. But I have developed some learning strategies to be successful. I started to make notecards after every lecture to organize my thoughts. It is similar to my notes on Evernote but these are actual notecards I wrote with a pen. This helped me reinforce everything that I just learned in class as well as help me study for exams. I have notecards I can read over to study for tests. I am currently in this difficult class but I believe I found some strategies in order to be successful in the course.
I have used Evernote and the Webclipper a lot in ECD 102H. In the majority of classes I would take notes on Evernote just incase I needed to refer back to what we were learning at any point. I also think that will be beneficial when I take the final. Having some discussion points that we went over in class will help me when writing our final paper. Also, in the three novels that we read throughout the class I took notes on Evernote. It was super easy to access these notes when we had discussions in class about the night before’s homework reading. Also, whenever we were given handouts in class I would take pictures and upload it to my Evernote notebook. Finally, if in class we talked about a website I could clip it to my notebook. Having all of these different ways to take notes has kept my very organized throughout the class. I feel confident with the way I used Evernote in this class and I hope to continue using it in other classes and throughout my education.
Viewing my notes on Evernote as a lasting resource will affect how I participate in my future classes. It is very convenient to have all of my notes on my laptop. Instead of having a notebook and binder for each class it would make it much easier to have everything in one place. Also, after this semester I am going to be taking more classes for my major and a lot of the information will be overlapping. It will be better to not have to write information down twice in two different places. Having the PKB I will be able to copy and paste information that may overlap in my classes. I can also have different notebooks for different classes all through my Evernote account. This can keep me organized. By having everything on my laptop, I can easily take notes in lectures as well as discussion classes. Evernote is applicable to any class; it can be used in all of my classes and will keep me organized in order to be the most successful student I can be.
My Personal Knowledge Base in my EDC 102H class has definitely benefitted me. It not only helped me in this one class but it will help me in future classes. It has kept my fairly organized and kept all of my information in one place. Knowing how to use Evernote and keeping a PKB will further help me be organized in future classes. I am very happy that I received the opportunity to have had a class that was focused on technology. I now know how I can relate technology to my education and with that I know I will be a more successful student.
Throughout this course specifically, I have used Evernote for everything. I store absolutely everything from class in my EDC 102H notebook including: class notes, educational resources, sources for projects, screenshots of my mindmups, and pictures of written documents. When using the Evernote Clipper, I commonly clip entire articles, but I have also made use of simplified articles, screenshots, and bookmarks. I find simplified articles best to clip when I plan on reading and annotating sources. The “simplified” aspect of the article eliminates all distractions and formats the text in an organized and readable way. The project that I used Evernote the most for in this class was the RI Strategic Plan Project. I first clipped the assignment details and instructions into a simplified article. I next clipped general sources such as Wikipedia so I could read when I had a chance to evaluate what I wanted to research further. Once that was decided, I clipped all the articles I had found for my Background Research page on the URITK wikispace. I then merged these sources into one note to keep them organized in one place. For this project, I also clipped a screenshot of the mindmup that I created for the visual representation on our team page. Lastly, I included a bookmark to our powerpoint from the teach-in that is located on my Google Drive. Having everything I needed for this project in my Evernote kept me organized and on track to complete the project in an efficient and timely manner.
As I stated above, the introduction of Evernote was very helpful to my organization. At the beginning of the semester, I was worried about my organization techniques in college. In high school, I took all my class notes on paper. For electronic documents, I used a Google Drive account attached to my school email. I like the easy sharing aspect of Google Drive; how I can share a document with anyone to peer edit my assignments. I now have a personal Drive and use it for this purpose. Now that I have Evernote, I type all my notes from class into the application and store them in folders for each course. Keeping my notes for all my courses in one place is extremely convenient when have lots of things to work on. If I go to the library now, I don’t need to carry a bunch of paper notebooks, or search for a bunch of Microsoft Word documents. I use Evernote for everything so everything is in one, organized location.
In Evernote, I have created nine notebooks. One for each of my six courses I took this semester, one for my Kappa Delta sorority documents and resources, one personal one for things that are not school related, and one for general documents that don’t fit into a category. I use tags on my notes with class topics, so I can look at all my resources together before written assignments or exams. For example, some of my tags for this class include: “Ravitch”, “Context Report Project”, and “RI Strategic Plan Project”. Another organizational trick I use is merging notes. As I explained above, for the RI Strategic Plan Project, I merged my sources for my Background Research page. I have done this also for my WRT 106 class research for my final paper when writing an annotated bibliography.
Evernote has been an extremely helpful tool in the organization and creation of my Personal Knowledge Base. I have used Evernote heavily in this class, as well as others. I tend to use Evernote as a means of storage for my class work and project sources, as opposed to clipping articles to accumulate outside academic resources for myself. I believe my Evernote to be very organized by my standards, with the successful use of tags and merging. Since expanding my use from EDC 102H to all of my academic courses, I have actually recommended it to my roommate who was unsure of an organizational strategy for her academics this semester. Alike myself, she has had success with the application. I would continue to recommend it to any and all college students. My PKB created in Evernote this semester will be an everlasting resource for years to come, and I will definitely be continuing the use of the application for my courses next semester and beyond.
My most challenging class this semester was Sex and Western Society. When I selected the class I had no idea what I was in for. While I have no problem learning about sex, the class was very graphic and vulgar. It was unexpected. This class is new to the university and there is really no set curriculum for it. Usually one thinks that having two professors teach the class will be beneficial, however, for this class it was disastrous. The two professors had no communication with each other and it was very obvious. The work load was probably the most I had this semester. Not only was it several pages of multiple articles per night, the language which the articles were written in was hard to comprehend due to the fact they were from centuries ago. For many of the classes, we had a different professor come into class and give a lecture on a topic which they were experts on. This made it difficult to learn because of the various different teaching styles. I have been struggling all semester with this class, as well as many other students have been. We used group study groups to help teach the material to each other. We also made in depth study guides before the tests to go over.
At the beginning of the semester I was having trouble studying. I would be studying for hours but I would see no positive results. I decided to be proactive and make an appointment at the Academic Enhancement Center. That decision was one of the best things I did for myself. I went back to see my academic coach week after week. By doing this, I learned new ways to study. The first thing I learned about studying is that you can never over do it. You do not stop studying until you know it well enough to teach someone else. I learned that the best way to study was to make a study guide. I used the following steps to study: First go over the teachers notes that were posted on sakai, then add anything into your notes that you did not already have, highlight the main points of the definition, make sure you have an example to go along with the definition, finally, handwrite a study guide and go over the study guide multiple times. I also used different colored pens for different terms to that it was clear which term was which. After using this strategy, I did see positive results with my exam grades.
At the beginning of the semester I used Evernote a decent amount. As the semester went on, I did not use it that much. I did not feel that it did anything to enhance my learning. I did not have a problem taking handwritten notes, so why change whats working. I like handwriting my notes better, I feel that it is more effective and beneficial. I can remember things easier when I handwrite things. It was also very confusing to me, I did not know how to use it in the beginning of the semester and I did not learn how to utilize it better throughout the semester. I did use Evernote Clipper more than I used Evernote. The Clipper allowed me to save references or articles that I would need at a later time. I like this tool a lot because I can use it to save other references and articles non school related. It also is a better way to view the article in my opinion. All in all, I would rather handwrite my notes instead of using Evernote or other personal knowledge based websites.
While I believe technology is improving society and is beneficial, I think that there are some things that are better off staying traditional. It is important to know how to do things without using technology. Those who lived many centuries ago survived without technology, so I think we can too. There are certainly many great aspects of technology and things that make life easier, but it is important to remember that you can do things without relying on technology.
I first started broadening my PKB when I encountered a few issues with one of my classes. My most difficult class this semester was one that I never expected to have an issue with. Intro to Psychology rocked my boat and I needed to find a solution to the problem as quickly as possible. I went to every class and was taking notes, but it wasn’t sinking in. I tried taking even more thorough notes and paying attention, but my ideas were scrambled and I needed to find a better way to organize my thoughts and assignments. I decided to ditch the notebook and start using Evernote to take notes, capture the class’ power point essentials, and remind myself of what was due throughout the week. I started reading the book and looking deeper into the information so I had a better understanding of the material. I used Evernote to write summaries of each chapter and term that I believed to be important to the course. Evernote made it easy for me to organize what was important for each quiz and what I needed to complete for my recitation later in the week. If I had to identify my problem, it would have to be my lack of involvement with the course at the beginning of the semester. I wasn’t keeping my head in touch with the material and keeping myself familiar with what I was learning. By using Evernote to organize my thinking and ideas, it was easier to just go to the application and do quick reviews in my free time to make sure my head was fresh and not forgetting important dates and facts. Evernote turned out to be a great addition to my difficult psychology course. It improved my organizational skills and allowed me to do much better in the class.
This semester proved to be very different from the others in that I needed to adopt new ways to study. I have always been a decent studier, but this semester like I mentioned before I ran into a couple of obstacles in my courses. Reading my notes and staying organized were great tools for me and proved to be very successful and they yielded great results, but my favorite new study method is a fairly obvious and menial one. During the semester it is always hard to sit down and read a book for pleasure. There is so much going on that I never got to read my favorite books and in my free time I found myself laying down and staring at the ceiling for a few minutes. I decided that the best way for me to relax was to read my textbooks. It sounds very nerdy, but it turned out to be the best way to relax, but study in disguise. At the end of each night, I devoted an hour or hour and a half to reading a book that was assigned and free writing about the topics or information on Evernote. This strategy was something that I never thought I would enjoy. This strategy ended up being extremely beneficial when it came to studying for tests and quizzes. When I began studying notes for the quizzes that were scheduled, I not only had a good memory of what I read, but I had an organized paragraph of thoughts that I could refer to in addition to notes I had taken in class. My new discovery of an old classic studying strategy was one of the best things that I did this semester. I became more active in my studies and could recall information much more easily.
My PKB has turned into an everlasting resource for my college career. Not only does it house educational information that I refer to almost every day when studying, writing papers, and doing homework, but it is a great way to organize interesting articles and thoughts I have in my every day life. Being able to access my notes anywhere that I have my computer has allowed me to be more active in classroom discussions and have more thoughtful inputs. I can refer to specific ideas I had months ago, with an article reference and quote from an author. This allows me to be more insightful and allows me to also add more information to old notes in the future. Overall, I am very happy about my PKB this fall semester and look forward to using it to my advantage in the future.
Using a PKB has made me a more organized and insightful learner. It allowed me to broaden my abilities as a learner. It allowed me to be thoughtful and organized in and out of the classroom. Evernote especially has helped me be a more involved learner and classroom contributor. PKBs are great for learners who are interested in broadening their knowledge and effectively sharing credible and thoughtful information with others. I hope that I continue to broaden my PKB with Evernote and Zotero in the future. They are great tools for teaching and learning and have helped me become a better learner this semester.
Taking EDC 102H has been transformational for me, and I am very thankful that I did not end my undergraduate career without learning the valuable lessons I learned in the class. Primarily, reflecting on the “game of school,” discussing current issues in education, and considering new ways to manage knowledge have made a huge impact on the way I approach learning. In this essay, I will describe how I used Evernote, Evernote Web Clipper, and Zotero to support my work in EDC 102H and other courses. Additionally, I will describe my Personal Knowledge Base (PKB)’s organizational scheme by explaining the structure of my notebooks and tags on Evernote. Furthermore, I will reflect on how I think that viewing my notes as a lasting resource might affect how I participate in future courses and life experiences. I am so thankful to have PKB tools integrated into my educational routine, and there are many ways in which I have grown because of my use of such tools.
Evernote, Evernote Web Clipper, and Zotero were all brand new to me upon entering EDC 102H and my unfamiliarity with them intimidated me. My fear of trying something new, such as Evernote, is related to my fear of failure that has been instilled in me from years of being praised for getting good grades. As I learned in this class, being reprimanded for struggling stunted my ability to grow into an adventurous and ambitious learner. So, knowing this, I took on the challenge of learning how to use the new web applications and I have been thriving with them. I use Evernote Web Clipper almost every day to clip articles, websites, and videos related to the subjects I am studying or interested in studying. Similarly, Zotero has become a large part of my academic success. Knowing that citing my sources is going to be easy has enabled me to start assignments sooner because I am less afraid of not doing well or taking a long time completing the assignment. I have gained a lot of confidence that I have needed for about a decade of my schooling, and Evernote and Zotero have made that change possible.
There is a specific way that I use Evernote that has enabled me to receive the benefits of managing knowledge with Evernote’s capabilities. On my Evernote application, I have four folders: EDC 102H, Honors Project, and Gender. Since all of my classes relate to education, gender, or both, my Evernote folders encompass everything I am currently studying. Some examples of tags I use are “education,” “marriage,” and “interpersonal violence,” but I have not actually taken advantage of the benefits of using tags. I feel that I am building the foundation of my PKB right now and that I will eventually have enough information in my Evernote folders to begin synthesizing articles based on tag similarity. I intend on improving the way I add to my PKB on Evernote by adding more than I currently do, using tags with general titles and specific subtitles, adding summaries of what I read to the articles I clip, and looking at the articles I clip after I clip them in order to summarize and synthesize new knowledge so that I can make connections between sources.
Viewing my notes as a lasting resource will definitely affect how I participate in future courses. While I have introduced Evernote into my life, I have not used it to it’s potential because I am so used to using information to complete an assignment rather than for the purpose of long-term intellectual growth. Currently, I use Evernote to keep a list of resources I plan on using to complete an assignment. In the future, I hope the spend time on Evernote looking over resources I have clipped even after I am done with my assignments so that the information I ingest can sink in and possibly be useful in the future. In addition, viewing my notes as a lasting resource will give me reason to work hard creating them and making sure that they are logically organized. I will start taking pictures of my notes and uploading them to Evernote because having one physical notebook for each class I am taking is not helping me make connections between subjects or between old and new information. I am looking forward to building a virtual bank of knowledge so that my hard work is more meaningful and beneficial to my personal and professional growth.
Learning about the “Game of School” redirected my efforts from trying to get good grades to acquiring knowledge for the sake of making connections and learning about topics I am passionate in. By creating a virtual Personal Knowledge Base has given me a sense of purpose while I am reading, listening, and searching online every day. What I once would have read and forgotten is now seen as an important addition to my Evernote and Zotero files. I have a much greater desire to research and write because doing I have such an easy way to save and cite interesting material. I use Evernote, Evernote Web Clipper, and Zotero whenever I find an article, video, blog, etc. that I am interested in and save it in case I might want to use it at a later date, which makes it much more enjoyable to do assignments when they are assigned because I have a large list of useful information that I have already collected. Having different Evernote folders for education, gender, and the classes/projects I am currently involved in helps me prepare for future assignments by getting me thinking about the topics and having a specific list for each subject before it is time to write a research paper or create a presentation. Lastly, viewing my notes as a lasting resource has enabled me to engage in my education in a meaningful way because I find more reason in the work that I do. Overall, EDC 102H has been an extremely significant class for me because of the experience I gained creating and utilizing my own Personal Knowledge Base.
Initially, I only used Evernote for this course. I predominantly used Evernote to store numerous articles that I found in regards to my topic of Central Falls for the Context Report or my topic of extracurricular activities for the Rhode Island Strategic Plan Project. By clipping the articles I found to Evernote and being able to high light certain information, it made my research much easier as I went back to sources to reference them for my projects. I also clipped all of my Academic Autobiographies to my personal knowledge base. Because of this, I know exactly where these autobiographies are and where they will be forever. Even if I eventually forget the password to my Wikispace, where the autobiographies originally were, I know that I will always have access to them whether it is on Evernote on my computer or on the Evernote App on my phone.
In complete honesty, I wasn't really a fan of Evernote at first. Like most new technology, it was confusing and difficult to work. However, with practice, I began to understand how useful it really was. Eventually, I broadened my use of Evernote. Not only was I using it for EDC 102H, I began to use it for matters related to my personal life. For example, Evernote became a way for me to store certain pages pertaining to my major and the required courses that I need to take here at URI in the future. I also recently clipped the Final Exam Schedule to my personal knowledge base. I even clipped my flu vaccine record. All throughout my life my parents stressed the importance of making copies of important documents. Whether it was confirmation emails or an application for a job that I applied to, my parents always told me to make a copy of it immediately in order to have it on file for my own records. By using Evernote, however, I no longer have to use a printer/copy machine and waste paper. Now, I can simply clip the form to my personal knowledge base and it will be there forever.
Through my continued use of Evernote, I have began to it upon myself to organize it in a way that is easy for me to understand. I admit that I haven't used any tags or note links. However, I have created a few different notebooks in order to organize each article that I clip and make them easier for me to find. Currently I have three notebooks titled "EDC 102H," "URI," and "Ileana LaGrutta's Notebook." Most obvious is my EDC 102H notebook. It is here where all of my articles for my Context Report, my Rhode Island Strategic Plan Project, and my Academic Autobiographies are placed. In my "URI" notebook I clip anything that has to do with URI. Whether it is the final exam schedule, the curriculum map for my major, or the group exercise schedule at the gym, this notebook will definitely be of use to me throughout these next four years. Lastly, the notebook titled "Ileana LaGrutta's Notebook" contains any documents that are important to my personal life. This includes my flu vaccine record as well as confirmation emails I have received in regards to items that I have purchased or events that I have signed up for. That being said, my personal knowledge base extends well beyond the classroom and can be used for many other aspects of my life.
In conclusion, EDC 102H was a great class. Not only did we learn about important issues around schools and educational reform, we also learned new forms of technology that we can use for the rest of our lives. In a world that is moving toward strictly digital and online resources, Evernote is definitely a great thing to have. I plan on using my personal knowledge base in order to store important documents pertaining to my personal life as well as continue to use it throughout the rest of my education whether that be here at URI or later on in graduate school. Evernote is an extremely beneficial tool and I would recommend it to anyone that wants to organize their life in a clear and simple way.
Mr. Fogleman
American Education
1 December 2014
PKB Reflection
During my Introduction to American Education course I used several personal knowledge based websites that were knew to me. These included Zotero, Evernote, Evernote Web Clipper, and a few others. They were used to help organize and store information for use at another time, so the ideas and web pages would not be lost. The topics that these websites held onto was used in class discussions and as research for several different projects. These websites were used to make technology do more for the students in terms of organization and consolidation.
My most challenging class this semester would probably have to be Nutrition. In addition to a lecture twice a week, we had a lab once a week that lasted over an hour and a half. For these labs we were expected to compile what we ate for three days and then log it into the computer on a specific website to get the nutritional information. I guess the most challenging part of this class was that the lab work was so tedious and took so long to complete. At one point I left out a few pages of questions I had to answer because I had no idea that they even existed on Sakai. Maybe its just me, but I would pick physical carbon copies of worksheets over online worksheets any day. To be successful, I tried to divide up the work so that I only needed to either study or complete problems a little at a time; which also prevented me from going crazy.
Viewing my notes as a lasting resource could help me be successful in future college classes because many things I will learn in one course will apply to other courses. For example, I have found that things I learn in Psychology show up in almost every single other course I have been taking. In History it shows why people made world-changing decisions, in Nutrition it shows why people are so unhealthy when they have the opportunity to be, and in this class it explains why certain people support certain policies of running education. Even in a class like Chorus I have found Psychology applies. For example, one of the songs is a slave song, and we must put ourselves in that person's shoes in order to properly perform the piece. Another song we sing was written centuries ago, and is very sexist but we need to look through the glasses of that time period. All this sort of downgrading of women was commonplace, and nothing would be thought of it if we were living back then. To summarize, any knowledge from any subject I am learning know could be applied to help me better understand other disciplines.
I have not really used Evernote this semester because I never really understood how it worked to begin with. Every time I would clip a web page, it would never save the site properly, and I would have to look it up again manually anyway. But that is okay, because technology that I do not understand does not really appeal to my conservation of knowledge anyway. As I said before, I much prefer a physical copy of information, so keeping notebooks (real ones) filled with the notes I may need later makes me much happier. Just like all people learn differently, all people recall information differently.
Someone once told me that studies have been done proving that taking notes by hand increases the ability for the brain to remember the information it is taking down, while doing it by typing decreases memory of the content. While its good news for me, I worry about others who get so stuck in technology that they cannot remember how to do things any other way. It is almost as if just operating without a screen has become an art, and this art is being lost. Perhaps one day, the world will have to function without the aid of technology. If that time should come, I would be happy to let someone copy my notes. ;)
Professor Fogleman
EDC 102H
PKB Reflection
As the year has gone by we have done plenty of things that have added our own personal knowledge. The idea of personal knowledge can be seen as a base where you can take ideas from one place and use them in another and vice versa. Like you can take knowledge you learned in a class on Nutrition and use it in a class on Education because you have to understand the health of your students and help take care of them if something is up or you could take something from a high school math teacher and use it in your everyday life and in your understanding of your own self. Like my math teacher in high school, junior year came in all dressed up because he had not done his laundry in over three weeks and was forced to dress up, this is what I use to remind me that I have to do my laundry or I will end up like him one day.
One way we really created a personal knowledge base was using a program called Evernote which allows the user to create notebooks of notes and pages that allow you to keep things that may be of some use at a later date. Personally I found Evernote to be helpful as I got better at working it on my computer. I began to use it in more than just my American Education class, because in that class I used it to make notes on the books we had to read and on the when we had to find articles for ourselves or for the group projects we did. I also started to use Evernote and the Web Clipper for my Research Writing class because it allowed me to find articles and place them there rather than just keeping extra tabs on my Firefox browser. It also made it easier to write notes on each of the articles I found for the different papers I had to do in the class. It was particularly helpful when I was doing an Informative paper in my Research Writing class because it allowed me to take all the articles I had found on Estonian Education, my topic of choice, and keep them in one place along with the notes I had taken on them. I also like the idea of Evernote because if I ever need those articles again whether it be an Education or History class I have them at my disposal always. You really never know when you could use something from another class so sometimes it is really helpful to keep most of it like you can do on Evernote.
For my personal knowledge base on Evernote it is definitely not as organized as I would like but as long as know where everything is it doesn’t really matter does it? On Evernote I have really two main notebooks right now one for American Education and one for Research Writing. I try to keep the notes that pertain to each class in their own folder. In the American Education notebook there are a few tabs that are sorting the information kept in the notebook better. One is the name of the author on one of the books we read, Suskind, another is Central Falls because I was in the Central Falls group project on the community reports in Rhode Island. These tabs make it easier to sort through all the information already in my Evernote from the class, they allow me to see the things that go together better than they would if they didn’t have the extra tabs. I also have notes under the ideas in Amanda Ripley’s book we read during the semester as well they are filed under her last name like the first book was. For the Research Writing notebook the tabs I have used are for the papers we wrote. The first being an Everyday activity paper then there is the Tab for the Informative paper, the one for the Annotated Bibliography and finally the last one for my Stress Research Paper and a lot of those notes are cross referenced with the Annotated Bibliography because I used the same topic for both.
I personally think the ideas behind a personal knowledge base and behind Evernote are extremely great and helpful not just for now but for the future because you really have no idea when you could use some of the things you collect now in the future. I have a feeling that I will be using the things I have collected for my American Education class at least for the next four years in college because there are a whole lot of Education classes that I have to take. I definitely feel that some of the things I have found would be used in the future because some of them are on the understanding of school districts and the money in schools and I know that when I become a teacher those are things I will have to know so it helps to have them from now. I also think that the stuff I have kept from Research Writing would be helpful because when I become a teacher and for when I have to deal with it myself having the research on stress will help me understand so much. You really have no idea when you could need something but if you feel like you should keep it I say do it.
The personal knowledge base is something that could be used for anything. It could be used in any class, in any situation of life really because it allows you to take the things you learn in any part of your life and use them in another. Everything you learn in life, at least in my opinion can be used interchangeably because there are so many skills you know that are used in everything you do and can be used in your life for the rest of your life. Whether it is life skills or how to memorize seemingly useless facts, who know is could in hand one day and you should be there to use it every day.
Evernote is a program focused on helping to organize notes and articles for whatever purpose a person needs it. In my case this meant organizing all my notes for my psychology, nutrition, and education classes. Within these notebooks, I kept tabs on each entry identifying which exam it was on and relationships it may have to other work. I found this program very useful because rather than having various word documents, my work is kept all in the same place for me to access from any location. That brings me to another benefit of Evernote, it is accessible on multiple devices. Whenever I had a psychology quiz, rather than bringing my computer to recitation to study, I was able to look at my notes on my phone and edit them if I needed to add any new information. Evernote helps to set one up for productivity which is why it is a great program.
Zotero is an organizational program which focuses on collecting sources. This program can be very useful when compiling a bibliography for a project or even taking note of interesting articles in an online newspaper. Although this is true, I found this method of resource keeping somewhat confusing and chose not to use it. In some cases I could the button which added a source to my Zotero database did not appear and I could not figure out the proper way to add a source to Zotero by hand. In the end I decided that I would rather create bibliographies and work cited pages by hand because in doing that I used a book from my writing class and knew exactly what to put for each source. This is as opposed to when I had to try to find the elements asked for by Zotero and I did not know which were necessary and which were not. Although Zotero did not work well for me, it may be a very useful resource for someone who would has time to learn how it works and in that case it may be very beneficial in keeping a personal knowledge base.
Finally, I recently discovered a program on my computer called OneNote. This program is very similar to Evernote with a few other benefits. OneNote is a note collection program provided with the purchase of Microsoft Office. With this program, one may organize information in ways very similar to those of Evernote. Although I have not been using this program very long, I really like it because not only can you collect notes in a notebook adding in separate section for different topics and individual pages within that, you can also upload other documents. With this ability one may use OneNote to make notes on a document, image, or article whichever has been uploaded. I found this very useful when trying to highlight a digital article for Jumpstart and would imagine it would be useful in the case of other works too. Additionally, because OneNote is a Microsoft program, the format of the program itself is very familiar to me and would be to others who looked to use it.
Overall, I really like the program OneNote and may switch to it from Evernote and test it out next semester. I figure that I should try out multiple programs which work to collect information before settling down to use just one. Maybe I will even give Zotero another try too because it could come in handy when creating source pages for projects. I think that over winter break, I will look more into these programs to find which will work best for me and recommend that others do the same. Having a personal knowledge base is very beneficial to students who want to keep work organized and do not want to throw away a notebook full of knowledge at the end of the semester.
PKB Reflection
Describe your most consistent challenge in your learning this semester? What was your most difficult class? What made it so hard? What learning strategies did you use try to be successful?
My most consistent challenge in my learning this semester has been the fact that, in all of my classes, my learning now comes from multiple resources and perspectives, whereas in high school I learned only from my teacher and the books or text books the teacher provided. More frequently now than ever I am pushed to explore new databases because much of my learning in college is individual. Since we are responsible for much of our own learning, professors have more time to show us different online resources to use, and the means to send us these resources through Sakai. I am a person of habit and a very visual and hands on type of learner, so I’ve always loved and worked best when I’m given a book or reading and told to learn it or memorize it. Instead, we’re now given concepts and topics by our professors, which we are expected to learn about to the best of our abilities. This threw me off at first because I’ve never had to be so responsible for my own learning and my learning has also never mattered as much as it does now; however, I am now pretty comfortable with this style and it allows me to learn the way I want to and generally at my own pace and on my own time. To try to be successful with this new sense of educational responsibility, I have become more organized. I keep track of everything I have to do, along with the resources I know of to help me accomplish it. College seems like a time when I have to use everything I’ve already learned and combine it with the new things I’m learning to form a knowledge base that I can then take on to the next classes with me, and so on.
Describe at least one strategy that YOU developed or adopted this semester to augment how you learn. This could be a study strategy that you have adapted, a way to organize your research, or some other way of collecting or organizing new knowledge for writing, planning, etc. Did your PKB contribute to this strategy? If so, explain how.
This semester I have gotten into the habit of finding and bookmarking articles and websites I know will help me learn and stay organized. I have made folders on my computer of different types of websites and I use this whenever I’m stuck on an idea or assignment. Additionally, as well as using my planner I make a note in my app “Stickies” on my laptop with every class on it and everything I know of that has to be done at some point for each and it’s really satisfying to be able to clear things from that list. I have the folders of websites organized under topics such as “Environment,” “Education,” “Math,” “Art,” and “URI.” My Evernote PKB hasn’t really contributed to this just because it’s my own little makeshift knowledge base that I find much more aesthetically and organizationally pleasing than Evernote. I can now keep these folders and add to them throughout my time here at URI and hopefully beyond, and I can create new ones as well.
If you decided not use Evernote this semester, explain why not. Describe what you have chosen to do instead in terms of organizing your notes in your courses, conducting research, etc.
I decided not to use Evernote this semester because I wasn’t completely comfortable with it or storing information in it. I am more comfortable organizing information and data completely my own way, so instead I used my aforementioned method of collecting websites and articles in different folders on my laptop’s desktop. Evernote is definitely an awesome application and many people love it, but I don’t like changing things about my daily routine or the way I learn and study and gather information, so I stuck to what I’m comfortable with for this semester. With such a big transition as to where I live and what I’m learning, I needed to keep the comfort of having my own ways of studying and organizing that I’ve always used.
As a “type A” person with many obsessive-compulsive antics when it comes to my education, I was satisfied with the organization options that Evernote provides. I had three different notebooks: in-class notes, out of class notes, and writing notes. I actually started using Evernote to organize notes for my research paper in my writing class, hence the ‘writing notes’ category. The in-class/out of class notes were separated to make recalling things I researched on my own easier; I didn’t have to look through all my class notes. I also used several different tags throughout the semester; I have one tag for each book that we read and one tag for each project we did. I also have a tag for ‘new information’ which are things that I didn’t know in the beginning of the semester that I thought was interesting, like what charter schools are.
My Evernote notes will certainly be used in the future. I have already made connections between things I learned in EDC and other classes, especially psychology. Since I want to be a school psychologist, learning about the education system is important. Evernote is so organized that finding specific information is an easy task. As skeptical as I was about using technology, I think it is a good way to store notes. This way the notes will never get lost like notebooks and paper could. It is easily accessible and future projects may require the information I learned over the semester that is kept in my PKB.
My favorite new skill I learned this semester was how to clip articles and web pages and save them on Evernote. This is much more convenient than Bookmarking a website to a computer since the Evernote Web Clipper allows you to clip only the information you want to be saved; you can highlight a specific portion or clip the whole website. When referring back to it on Evernote, the web link is saved too for easy access back to the original website. This is especially useful when doing research online.
I was pleasantly surprised with the PKB. It was an efficient way for me to keep track of my notes. This class had several projects that required research; saving the information researched on the internet was easy via the Evernote Web Clipper. I will continue to use Evernote in the future to store and organize my notes for other classes. Using tags will make it easy to connect ideas from all different classes which enhances my educational experience.
Jay Fogleman
EDC 102H
5 December 2014
PKB Reflection
Overall, my most consistent challenge in learning this semester has been staying focused on my work. Concentration throughout my classes has always been an issue for me, and that didn’t change when I entered college. My hardest class this semester was likely my microeconomics class. Even though I expected my calculus class to surpass it in difficulty, I was surprised to find myself struggling in microeconomics. Grasping general concepts didn’t seem much of an issue when the professor was teaching in class. For the most part, it seemed as if common sense solutions were being applied to economic problems. However, when it came time to test my knowledge, I found myself lost.
In order to be successful in college, especially with a concentration problem, I knew it was essential to stay organized. Early on in the semester I realized this and bought a planner to list out my assignments. Also, I began to utilize the “Reminders” app on my phone to stay on top of my work. Organization often involves creating a schedule. Throughout the semester, I tried to balance my work equally so that procrastination would become less of a problem. Additionally, I organized some of my work using Google Docs. For example, every day in my history of jazz class I took notes in a Google Doc so that I could easily refer to any section of my work by using the “find” function and typing in a key word.
One strategy that I developed this semester that augmented the way that I learn was taking notes while reading. For example, while reading the various literary works required for this course, I found it helpful to note the most essential points being touched upon. Another strategy that I used in nearly every class was to read ahead in the textbook so I could go into the following class already having been exposed to the material. This was probably the most advantageous of my learning strategies developed, as it would give me an advantage and a comfortable feeling of already being knowledgeable with new material.
This semester, I used Evernote sparingly. When first introduced to some of its functions, I thought Evernote was an interesting and potentially helpful resource. However, I realized I was more comfortable with my current, familiar ways of organization. Therefore, Evernote became unnecessary for me. In fact, my personal knowledge base varied from class to class. All of my lessons, programs, and acquired information from my computer science class is stored on my Khan Academy profile. As I mentioned before, all of my notes for my history of jazz class are stored on a Google Doc, while my information comes from a textbook. For my microeconomics class, my resources are either in a notebook that I wrote in, in a textbook, or available on PowerPoint slides on Sakai. For calculus, my information is stored in my binder or in a textbook purchased at the beginning of the semester. For this class, my notes reside in word documents and sparingly in my Evernote.
When I did use Evernote, I was impressed with its capabilities and compatibility. The fact that I can access my Evernote both on my computer and my phone is quite convenient. As far as information is concerned, I used Evernote to store information that I initially acquired for my context report. Other than that, I had no use for the software, as the majority of my personal knowledge base is stored offline in Word Documents. For the most part, my personal knowledge base shifted in the direction of the cloud. Regardless of how much I used each resource this semester, I relied on web-based applications to store information gained throughout my classes.
EDC 102H F14 - PKB Reflections
This class allowed me to develop skills that I used to create a Personal Knowledge Base (PKB) and expand upon it to organize ideas that were used in class discussions and class assignments. Evernote was a very useful tool in the class because it supported work I did in the class allowing me to organize material I have found for the class with the tabs it allowed me to place on internet documents I found. This provided a very effective organizational scheme because I was able to tag documents to be a part of two different notebooks which allowed me to connect information from many different sources together for use in an assignment. Evernote was not the only portion of the PKB I used to aid my studies in this class and other classes, I used Zotero for the final project in the class after I managed to get it to start working and I used the Khan Academy website to aid in my studies for other classes and it became a very useful learning strategy. My PKB was based off the ways I used Evernote and the web clipper to support work in this class, my overall PKB organizational scheme I have created for the class which includes Zotero and electronic sources, and I also used the Khan Academy website I learned about in class as a learning strategy to aid my education in other classes.
Evernote and the Evernote Web Clipper were used to support the work I have done in this class because it allowed me to keep track and organize useful information I have found online. I used Evernote was used to gather census data for my project on central falls and to organize database searches and articles I used for my final class assignment on fair funding. Each article or database I tagged had a specific tag that correlated it with the project it belonged too, which made it easy to go to my tags page on Evernote and have all of my references organized by what assignment they belonged too. I would also be able to tag the page if it was a chart from a database that I wanted to reference, and I would be able to tag the URL of the page in order to revisit it and click on more related articles or links from the page itself. This allowed for me to look up and organize information and articles very efficiently and was a much better system than using bookmarks which is what I have been doing in the past.
My overall PKB organizational scheme was mainly based of electronic sources I have found and organized through Evernote and not so much on planning activities such as mind map. It mostly consisted of the discovery and organization of various online articles and databases that were organized through Evernote. I created a notebook for this class and also one for my personal searches which mostly consisted of random science articles I like to read in my free time. The notebook for this class titled EDC 102H used tags as subcategories within it based on which assignments the articles and data belonged too. To site these articles and databases I used Zotero which turned out to be a very effective tool when I learned how to get it to work. It provided me with accurate citations that were able to obtain by book marking pages in Zotero and viewing them later where the resources are stored.
The technology we used in the class this semester helped me develop a type of learning strategy if it can be called one, and that was to use online sources like khan academy to aid me in my other classes. My most difficult class so far this semester has been organic chemistry and reading the textbook to study for the class doesn’t always work the best for me as a study guide. I feel that I am a visual learner and learn better while listening to someone teach and showing how a particular thing works. I knew about Khan Academy as a few YouTube videos that I would occasionally use to help me understand a topic I was struggling on by looking it up in the search bar. When I discovered the website from a discussion in class I was amazed at how much material was on there and that whole courses were laid out in the form of videos. It became a great tool and asset for studying in that class because it allowed me to visually be taught by a teacher that I had access to whenever I needed to review.
This is how my PKB was used inside and outside of this class, there were the ways I used Evernote and the web clipper to support work in this class, my overall PKB organizational scheme I have created for the class which includes Zotero, and the use of the Khan Academy website I learned about in class as a learning strategy to aid my education in other classes. My personal knowledge based was used to organize my resources gathered in this class, cite them correctly, and organize them n a way that was most effective for me to use. The knowledge I also gained in class such as the Khan Academy website really benefited me in other classes such as chemistry and I plan to use it on other classes in the future.
Evernote and Evernote Web Clipper were large supporters of my work in this course. An online notebook, where one can record anything they desire and also snap pictures of anything on their screen, had never been introduced to me before. It is a very cool and effective concept. Evernote has so many possibilities in which it can be utilized. In addition to taking notes, Evernote allows you to create different notebooks, gives access to an atlas, allows you to sync your Evernote with others, allows you to share your Evernote, and also helps you set reminders. Evernote helped me to keep all my work and notes in one place, and not loose track of things that I wanted or needed to record. Evernote Web Clipper allowed me to snap images of whatever was on my screen and then synced the image into my Evernote application. The Web Clipper was used if I chose to snap a picture of an article, graph, or quick link to a youtube video. In addition to this, the Web Clipper can capture web clips, annotate pages, and record audio. Evernote helped me stay organized and introduced me to more efficient ways to gather information.
My Personal Knowledge Base (PKB) was advanced in the areas of American Public Education and school reforms by using Evernote. I was able to clip articles and charts while doing projects on Rhode Island Education reforms. Articles clipped from Feedly, a tool that supplies thousands of articles from numerous sources, were very helpful in the areas of education reforms. I was also able to save notes on other people’s projects and things we reviewed in class. My Personal Knowledge Base now consists of articles, notes, references, and reflections on ideas. Evernote helped to advance my knowledge on school reforms in America and around the world.
The most consistent challenge with learning this semester was staying on top of work assigned, retaining information previously learned, and properly citing in papers. Procrastination has always been a personal problem and this year the realization that preparation and time are essential elements in doing work finally dawned on me. The most difficult classes that I have experienced are most definitely Art History 251 and Nutrition 210. These classes are purely made up of memorization, which takes time, dedication, and a lot of repetition. This semester I adopted the strategy of organizing new knowledge more efficiently and planning out a work schedule better, which helped me retain information and stay on top of my workload. With the application Zotero I was able to have something that would automatically cite things for me, which helped me to properly add citations to my papers.
In the future I will now be able to use Evernote to store notes from my other classes. This semester I only used it for notes within our Education class. Having all my notes in the same place on an online source will help me to stay more organized and assist me in studying for exams. My participation in other courses will improve with the lasting resources of Evernote, Evernote Web Clipper, Feedly, and Zotero.
My most difficult class by far was Honors Ethics at Play. This was most likely because I could not use my laptop or phone during class some type of penalty. This resulted in my option of using Evernote to be eliminated. I never made a conscience discussion to not use Evernote but having one of my two other classes be Math, it did not seem useful to being using my personal knowledge base for just Communication Fundamentals, and Education 102. I did not feel that using Evernote would help me broaden my knowledge more so than just taking hard notes.
Personally for me, I am much more excited by the possibility of using the Smart Pen because for my major being math and secondary education I see this being much more helpful. I can see that in a large lecture when the teacher is both presenting a power point and teaching from it, this could be very helpful cause I have trouble trying to write both what the teacher is saying and the power point down in my notes. Not only for my math notes but I could see second semester this also benefitting me in my Psychology 113. This piece of technology will also be very helpful in my classes such as calculus where the teacher is explaining his work as he writes because I will be able to come to a full understanding of the class that I am not receiving right now. I will also potentially be able to add my notes from Smart Pen onto my computer so with math classes that build on top of each other I will be able to reference these notes in the future and not worry about finding a place to keep them on my desk!
I wanted to mention that although I have not been using Evernote to its full advantage, I have been loving using Zetero. Although some websites will not directly link to Zetero, it is very helpful to be able to enter the information from the website and be able to change the format from MLA to APA format. My only regret relating to Zetero is that I was not aware of this tool earlier, such as in high school!
Overall, although I personal made the decision to not use Evernote I do not think it speaks to Dr. Folgleman's ability to show us how to use this, but rather I knew there was not much opportunity for me to be able to use Evernote in my other classes. I felt any notes that I would take on it would be lost because they would not be connected at all with my other notes. I choose to instead write notes in the books that were reading and discussing in Education 102. For me this works better when I'm looking back at my work. When it came time for research I just put my notes in a simple word document, because this where I would later write my reflection/paper from.